Outlet Mall Fantasy
by Dagas089
Summary: Pay no attention to the two show categories you see before you, for they only speak lies! This, my friends is an ULTIMATE cross over that I am sure you will enjoy. If you want to see a full character list, make sure to read the very first chapter!
1. A Word of Caution

Outlet Mall Fantasy

WARNING: Before you read this story, take in mind that it is rated M for, "Majorly immature/ inappropriate" This is a story that reaches earth from the dark recesses of my mind that only wish to induce laughter to your lungs. Also realize that this is probably going to be the only formal statement that you will read in this story from here on out. Keep in mind before you venture out into the dark abyss of this fanfiction these things; the story includes large amounts of anger, swearing, racist comments and slurs, smelly socks, offencive commentary, mild fan-service, major fan-service, a VERY pissy manager, references from popular movies and shows, characters who don't normally belong in the same room and content from the following shows/books/other content- Death Note, Harry Potter, Black Butler, Final Fantasy (or Kingdom hearts, whichever way you choose to label it as) Nabari No Ou, Code Geass, Pokémon, Ouran High School Host Club, Hetalia, Durarara!, D. Gray Man, Soul Eater and possibly more to come. If you have no clue what most of those shows are, I kindly advise you to either watch all of them before reading or get the hell out of here while you still can. Below here is the character list so you don't get confused with the strange plotline. Happy reading and good luck… you're gonna need it. X3

Store owners:

Gormagon (it's kinda like hot topic, just more gothic)- Mello (Death Note)

Office Max- Harry Potter and Cedric Diggory (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire)

Sweets Shop- L (Death Note)

Pet Shop- Sebastian and Ciel (Black Butler)

Candle/Jam shop- Beyond Birthday (Death Note)

Barns and Noble- Leon and Cloud (Final Fantasy)

Weapons Shop- Zack and Cloud (Final Fantasy)

Japanese Restaurant- Yoite and Miharu (Nabari No Ou)

Little Red (it's a clothing store, but everything is a shade of red)- Greil (Black Butler)

Furniture Store- Suzaku and Lelouch (Code Geass)

Sports Depot- Falkner (Pokémon)

Banana Republic/Old Navy- Light (Death Note)

Video Cave (it's like a game stop with and additional arcade)- Matt (Death Note)

Holliday Nick-Knacks- Morty (Pokémon)

Miscellaneous Store- Tamaki, Kyoya, Mori and Honey (Ouran High School Host Club)

Cosplay Shop- Hikaru and Kaoru (Ouran High School Host Club)

Toy Store/Undertaker- Undertaker (like it isn't a given)(Black Butler)

Road Sign Store- Shizuo (Durarara!)

Information Broker- Izaya (Durarara!)

Banana Bubble Gum Kiosk- Masaomi (Durarara!)

Fast Food Plaza- Dewie (he was that fat guy in that train movie Unstoppable)

Storage Warehouse- Hetalia people

Custodians- Bard, Finny, Meirin (Black Butler)

Manager- Dagas (that's just me. I'm from no particular show or book and this is about one of the only, say, three to five original characters in this book that you will see)

List of people who cause trouble:

The Hobo- Sunni Shinez (another original character based off of a friend)

The Hobo's cat that you only see in one chapter- Batty

The Loiterer- Rolo (Code Geass)

Guy who never leaves the toy store- Near (Death Note)

Dudes with name tags- Pants and Shorts (two other original characters)

The Hobo's Squirrel- Hitlar the Squirrel (don't even TRY to tell me I spelled Hitlar wrong. I meant what I said!)

There are a few more trouble makers that I could list, but I would rather you read on to find out who decides to give the mall shtick. (lol! That's a funny word!)

Now that we're through with that, on to the show! (BTW, don't be pissed at me when I start to favor shows/ characters. I don't wanna do anything about it, so don't yell at me to fix it!)


	2. Chapter One

Chapter One… why you have no title?

"Da… Daga… Dagas, wake up."

"Ngh… No, bad He-Man… Shoes aren't food…"

It's not every day that someone would wake up to a psycho killer staring at them two inches away from their face. In my case, I would usually wake up to a mentally challenged freak bent on trying to kill me.

"Good morning," said the spiky haired man standing before me.

Waking up out of my daze, I looked up to see the fictional psycho killer, Beyond Birthday, holding his trusty pocket knife right above where my windpipe would be. Immediately feeling the power of three gallons of monster coursing through my veins, I hurled myself out of the grips of my sheets and proceeded to jam, my feet into B's abdomen, much like a crack addicted kangaroo. I stuck my landing and watched B hurl into the wall opposite of the one my queen sized bed was leaning against.

As he slammed into the wall, above the sound of crashing objects, I could hear the crack of B's neck as it crashed into the edge of my desk. There were a few moments where he just sat still on the ground before he even thought about making any sort of movement. Once he looked up, a small amount of his own blood dribbling out of the corner of his mouth, I looked him in the eye with a victorious grin while he grinned back in defeat.

"That's another win on Dagas' part. Seriously, you are really off your game this month, B," Kyoya Sempai said in the open doorway of my room as he jotted down my victory into his log-binder.

"Oh, can it, Kyoya. I know I've been off lately. I just can't seem to find the right target or right time, that's all… by the way, don't you have to start opening up your store soon?" B complained while brushing the wall debris and blood off his black shirt.

"I put Tamaki and Mori in charge of that today. Speaking of which; Dagas, we have a problem at Barns and Noble."

"Oh, come on! That's the third time this season!" I let out a sigh. "Just give me a minute. I'll be out soon, okay?" I groaned.

"Okay, but you might want to hurry. It's pretty bad this time," Kyoya warned.

"It's always "pretty bad", Kyoya! It always is!" B pointed out as he snapped his neck back into place.

Yeah, so this is my life in a nut-shell; being the manager of an outlet mall. Basically, I wake up every day to either A) someone who has a problem that only I can take care of or B) B trying to practice his killing strategies on me or some innocent victim. Sure, it's an insane lifestyle, but it's my life and I prefer to stick with it.

But, anyways, yes, I'm the owner of this outlet mall that we all call home. Though, it sure is a crazy home being that all my roommates are fictional characters from anime shows, books and video games. Each of them has been given their own store in the two story complex where the store that they are in charge of is on the first floor and the personal quarters are on the second. Owned by Leon and the part time employee, Cloud, is Barns and Noble, which was where I was headed. Normally, the store is one of the more manageable ones, but on special occasions, things like this would happen;

*SLAM* "What's going on here? What happened THIS time?" I shouted as I burst through the double doors of the book store. Upon bursting in, the first thing I saw was Leon and Cloud having it out in the middle of the store with their regular argument:

"I say we need more action and wartime books!" Leon demanded.

"Well I say we need more manga for the teens. We've been getting a lot more of them in here lately. Besides, all of your book choices are always too violent or inappropriate," Cloud retorted in his emo-like tone, his voice getting testier by the second.

"So? You only work here part-time! I'm the owner of this store and I say action and wartime!"

"Manga."

"Action!"

"Manga."

"Action!"

"Manga."

"Action!"

"Manga."

"Sora!" Sora jumped in with a beaming smile.

"You stay out of this, pipsqueak!" Leon ordered at the small video game character with the spiky brown hair, giant keyblade and oversized yellow clown shoes.

"Aw!"

"That's enough!" I intervened. "Leon! Listen to Cloud this time! We need a fresh stock of manga! Cloud! Get over to the weapons shop to help Zack set up! AND Sora! Get back into your own book! Seriously, we need to get to work people!"

"Well you're in a good mood this morning," Zack scoffed from the doorway, obviously while waiting for Cloud. "B woke you up this morning again?"

I gave Zack the nastiest glare I could muster up at 7 in the morning, twitched my right eye a little… and gave in. "Yes, he did. I am very testy right now, so I suggest that you tell me all your problems right now so I don't get really pissy later."

"Well, if you insist, there is something going on at the pet shop," he obliged.

"Damnit! Again? Oooo, I'll beat that dog with a belt!" I screamed, knowing exactly what happened.

I left the book store to storm across the empty parking lot to the pet shop. When I arrived, things weren't as bad as I had previously expected. My custodian, Finny, was bawling his eyes out on the dusty floor, Ciel was sulking against a shelf of hamster balls, knowing all of the damage done would cost him, Sebastian was sweeping up parakeet feathers off the floor and then there was Pluto. He sat on the floor (in human form, might I add. Shield your eyes!) trying to wag his non-existent tail with three parakeet feathers hanging out his mouth and five more stuck in his long, grey, shaggy hair.

When I looked over to the mutt to give him a nasty glare, I saw the wonder glowing in his crimson eyes. He knew exactly what he did, and he was pretty damn happy about it. This made me pissed to no end.

"YOU!" I snarled at the dog-man while angrily pointing a shaky finger at him like the evil monkey in the closet. "YOU did this!"

He barked twice before shaking the feathers out of his hair.

"Finny! What happened?" I demanded of him.

"WHAAAA! He ate my birdy!" he wailed out dramatically.

"He ATE it?"

"WHAAAAAAAAA!"

I began to painfully grit my teeth as I looked back to the dog.

"I am terribly sorry about the mess, Dagas. I'll have it cleaned up soon, but…" Sebastian apologized before leaning up to my ear to whisper, "if I might, may I suggest getting rid of THAT," he asked before gesturing towards Pluto who was now on the other side of the room, sniffing Ciel's hair as if it was his dessert. It seemed like the bird just wasn't enough.

"Don't worry about it! I called up some people and a grim reaper stationed in Ireland is willing to take him in about a month," I reassured him.

"A month?" he sighed. "Well, in that time period, could we at least send him to the miscellaneous store?"

"No, Sebastian! I know you hate dogs, but this is the pet store, and you own it; end of story. For now, Finny!" I drew my attention back to him.

"Hmmm?" he mumbled as he sniffled up his tears.

"We need to rally the troops. By the looks of it, this is gonna be another long day. Forward march!" I ordered with the mindset of a general.

"Okee-dokee," he said as he started to cheer up a bit. He sprung up from the floor and marched right out the door behind me. And so began another "average" day at Chicago's Most famous outlet mall.

* * *

><p>"Ten-HUT! Listen up! We have a big event coming up today. We have some kids coming here for a major field trip. Because of that, you're all going to have to work twice as hard to make sure everything is ship shape!" I stated to my three custodians. "Do I make myself clear?"<p>

"Heh, "ship shape"? Good luck with that," Bard whispered to Finny. Finny simply responded with an amused giggle.

"I SAID, do I make myself CLEAR?"

"Yessir!" the three replied in unison.

"Then get going! I want this place spotless! I'm going to go make sure the other employees are prepared for today. Now move out!"

"Right!" they all responded.

"Wait! I just remembered! What do we do about Office Max?" Bard pointed out.

"Oh! Right!" I remembered followed by a face-palm. "Harry and Fredward!"

"Um, isn't his name Cedric? Not Fredward?" Meirin asked.

"I call him Fredward! But in any case, we do have to do something about them."

"Hmm… I know! Why don't we shove them in a really big binder?" Finny suggested with a hand motion like he was closing a binder.

"That's a great idea, but we don't have a really big binder. If we did, I would totally do that," I admitted.

"Ah, we don't have a big binder, but we DO have a really big dog cage!" Meirin said with a smirk on her face that you would be lucky to see in your lifetime.

"That's perfect! Speaking of the bird eating beast, one of you go get that dog a pair of pants from Old Navy!"

"Got it!" Finny called before speeding off to Old Navy.

"Alright! Bard, you come with me. We have some wizards to catch!"

"I'll get the net and my flame thrower!"

"No flame thrower."

"Damnit!"

* * *

><p>"Hey, Cedric. Do you have all the pencils restocked?" Harry yelled across the room. When there was no answer he called out, "Cedric? I asked you a question… Cedric?" He rounded the corner to enter the school supplies section and stopped in his tracks, eyes widened as he saw me and Bard at the other end of the isle. I was standing, arms crossed and a smirk on my face. Next to me was Bard who was aiming his bazooka gun right at Potter's face. At his feet was a very frightened Cedric in a net-cocoon that foretold the fate of the next victim.<p>

"You're mine, Potter!" Bard shouted before pulling the trigger that sent a giant net flying towards Harry. He struggled to dodge it, but it was no use. The wild wizard was captured in his natural habitat.

"Nailed 'em!" Bard exclaimed with pride.

"Nice aiming! Now, to the cage!" I cried.

"The what?" Harry and Cedric both yelped in unison.

And with that, everything was set for the little slimy chidlers (yes, chidlers) to arrive. This was yet another reason why things around here are pretty hectic; we're like a tourist attraction. We host lunches for field trips, we've hosted a few parties, and we've even hosted a minor-scaled anime con before. All the time, we hear the anime fans say to the employees, "Wow! That cosplay is amazing! How'd you make it?" but we all know that it's not cosplay, it's the "real" deal. Of course, normal 10 year olds wouldn't know what anime is yet, but most would know about the famous Harry Potter and Cedric Diggory from The Goblet of Fire, so of course we have to lock them up or hide them and put someone else in charge of Office Max for the school field trips. The bazooka gun isn't always what we use to get them out of sight, but it's more entertaining to catch them off guard!

* * *

><p>"Alright Kids! Single file line! I want you all on your best behavior."<p>

"We're not kids," someone shouted out.

"So? What I'm trying to get across is that I don't want anything to go wrong like last time," I said to all of my employees. Remembering the "last time" we had a special group of people visit the mall, the people in front of me all let out a slight shudder with the thought of something like that happening again.

"Oh! Here they come! I can see the busses!" Honey cried out as he pointed at the yellow figures off in the distance. Even from the middle of the parking lot, I could hear the hungry children laughing and cheering like tiny banshees.

"Remember everyone; BEST behavior," I warned once more before the four busses pulled in. As we all stood in our neat, single file line, the hordes of screaming children began to emerge.

Once the teachers had calmed down the small beasts, we provided the entire group with our greeting that the Ouran students insisted we used. Bowing slightly (all in unison. I couldn't believe we even pulled that part off!) we all chimed in unison with warm smiles, "Welcome."

The teachers, baffled by our warm welcoming committee, began to clap and cheer with the small children once we were done. Once that had passed, the field trip officially began. I introduced the visitors, as always, to my co-workers, their store accompanying their names. As warm as we were, there were always the strange and horrified looks that the children gave to some of our more frightening employees. Honestly, I didn't blame them for being scared. Anyways, the entire time, I dreadfully feared something going wrong. For the most part, nothing happened… until SHE returned.

* * *

><p>"Excuse me. Are you the manager?" one of the teachers called over to me.<p>

"Uh, yeah. What happened?" I warily asked.

"Oh, goodness me! Nothing happened, miss! I was just coming over to commend you on your delightful outlet mall!"

"Say whaaaaaaaaat?" I asked with the voice of a large black woman. "Nothing's wrong?"

"Oh, not at all! I must say, your welcoming was just splendid! And your employees are so polite! The ones at the foreign restaurant greeted the children warmly and made the most delectable food. The one at the toy store seems so welcoming and willing to have fun with the kids."

"Oh, you have no idea," I whispered to myself. With the teacher still blabbering on, she didn't notice I had said a word.

"The people at the pet shop were delightful, oh! And the man on the unicycle seems to really put a smile on the children's faces!"

"Wait just a minute… who the hell got a unicycle?" I whispered a bit louder than last time. This got the teacher's attention.

"Pardon?"

"Nothing, just organizing in my head," I covered up.

"Daaaaaaagaaaaaaaassss!" Finny cried while running full speed towards me. He messed up his short stop and rammed into me before he could stop himself, sending his gardener's hat flying off his neck. When I looked up, said straw hat that usually clung to Finny's neck and dangled innocently down his back was now on the head of the over-polite woman I was just talking to. I began to cringe, thinking that the field trip was all over for the beastly 5ht graders. I began to dread what the woman would say (or scream) to me as she opened her mouth. What I heard wasn't a good scolding or screaming, but the sound of this woman's joyful laughter.

I let out a sigh of relief as the woman finished her laughing to say in a cheery tone, "Oh, young man, I believe you have misplaced your hat."

As she handed the hat back to Finny, his eyes cheerfully lit up with great joy and happiness. "Oh, thank you, Ma'am! Nice meeting you!"

I gaped as I watched him begin to walk away.

"Didn't he want to tell you something?" the woman asked.

Realizing his fault and my own, I yelled back to him, "Hey, Finny!"

"Yeeeeees?" he cooed back.

"Isn't there something you wanted to tell me?"

"Oh yeah!" he said before racing back towards me (and managing to make the short stop this time.) When he stopped, he looked up at me with a grave look in his eyes. "She's back," he said in a grave tone. The moment he said those horrible words, my mind became silent with dread. If she was back now, this whole field trip would turn into utter chaos.

"Finny…"

"Yes?"

"Round up the troops. We have a hobo to catch… and this time, THIS time, I won't be beaten!"

"Understood."

* * *

><p>"Is that her?" Bard asked.<p>

"Yeah, that's her. I'd recognize that leashed cat anywhere." Looking down the sidewalk, I saw the intruder. She strolled down the sidewalk while humming her usual tuneless song and walking her nameless, black, skinny cat.

"Is everyone in place?" I asked Bard.

"Yup, they're all armed and in place, just like you asked."

"Good," I replied as I glared at the hobo. As I watched her walk, I felt myself start to grin while waiting for my long awaited victory against Sunni the hobo and her trouble making cats.

"Here she comes!" Bard alerted me.

"Okay, ready for net launch in three… two… one…" but before I could finish my count down, the same thing that happened last time occurred once more.

"She's gone!" Bard yelled while gritting his teeth.

"Damnit! Not again!" I cried. It's not like she disintegrated into thin air. No, like always, she had teleported before we could fire. "Nooooooooooooooooo!" I wailed as I collapsed onto my knees. This was, of course, my crappy impersonation of Darth Vader, and it worked like a charm for a cry of defeat.

"Hey, what's up with them?" one of the kids asked while looking out the window of the toy store.

"Oh, just the usual. Hee, hee, hee!" the Undertaker croaked.

"Aw man," Tamaki groaned as he looked out the front window with a pair of puppy dog eyes.

"What's wrong? Did something happen?" Kyoya aksed.

"They didn't catch the hobo… again."

"Oh, not again." He sighed. "She teleported?"

"Yep."

"Ah, I see."

Would you care for an explanation? Then and explanation is what you shall have! You see, every once in a while, at any outlet mall for that matter, there's always going to be the annoying person that never leaves or the loiterer that just sits there and sulks. Being that this is an outlet mall of fictional proportions, we also have troublemakers of fictional proportions. We have the two loiterers, some dude who just sits against the walls drinking black coffee all day, and Rolo from Code Geass. Now as opposed to a regular loiterer, in Rolo's case, when you say "loiterer", he hears "litterer". So literally, he runs around the parking lot and the furniture store throwing shards of paper everywhere he goes.

Next we have the boy who never leaves the toy store; Near. He isn't as bad as Rolo, however, he still forces the Undertaker to restock the toys every time he swings by.

Then we have Pants and Shorts. They don't really do much besides being an annoyance. They wander around aimlessly while wearing their regular white t-shirts and their random nametags and clueless faces that you can't wipe off.

The worst of all of these people would have to be Sunni the teleporting hobo. She walks around and causes as much trouble as she can in one sitting. Every time she comes by, she mentally scars either me or one of my customers she comes in contact with. She strides around the outlet mall while walking one of her three cats, leash in hand. To add to that, every time we try to catch her, she teleports at the last second. Worst of all, as L had so kindly pointed out a long while ago, we can never get her on our security cameras, therefore, we can't file a police warrant for her.

Well, if I haven't said that this place was above average before, I'm saying it now; this place is WAY above average.


	3. Chapter Two

Chapter Two: Every Day Living

"Well… I guess this day could have been worse," I sighed as I gave Bard the ok to put down the bazooka.

"Yeah, but the day still isn't over yet," Meirin pointed out.

I let out an exasperated sigh as I realized that she was right. The kids might be leaving in about a half an hour, but the day still wouldn't be over after that! And not only that, but where there's a hobo, there's another ruckus maker somewhere nearby.

* * *

><p>About a half an hour later, I was waving a cheerful goodbye to the demonic children who had piled into their noisy buses. Though, I'll say it again, the day still wasn't over, it was nice to see at least one nuisance leave my sights. And for a few minutes, just as the buses had left, there was a nice, shred of silence… just pure silence-<p>

BOOM!

Silence. Broken.

I felt the ground shake a bit and waited for it to stop before dashing straight for Miharu and Yoite's Asian restaurant. The minute I got there, the first thing I saw was the source of the problem; the center stove which was, along with the surrounding area, sparked with little tufts of flames. When I turned to see who was cooking up this disaster, I saw Yoite with a charred apron tied on and an ash covered spatula in his left hand. His face might have looked emotionless… if I could see it through the thick layer of coal-like substance all over his face!

At the other end of the room, I saw Miharu with a look of fright melded with the face of a person that was about to cough up a brick. Mimi had a thin layer of ash on his face and clothing and struggled to keep his balance after witnessing such a horrifying event. He shakily clung the nearest stove, looking like he could strangle a kitten at any second.

As I approached Yoite, a thin, lingering puff of ash in the air caused me to start a coughing fit. I cleared away the smoke with my hand before saying in the tone of a stern house wife, "Well… what in the name if mike happened here?"

Yoite was silent for a short while before he held up a small spice container that literally was labeled, "Random Spice". He continued to hold it up as he said in his usual emo monotone voice that was almost a whisper, "I think I used too much of," he paused to take another look at the label, "this stuff."

"Is this seriously supposed to be a spice?" I questioned as I took the container from his hand.

"Yoitaaaaaaaay!" Miharu snarled out. "I told you not to use that spice! Only I can use it because I'm the only person who knows how much of it to put in ANYTHING! If you put in too much, your dish will explode! Understand?"

Looking down at the grey, ashy floor, Yoite said with an apologetic and disappointed look in his vibrantly blue eyes, "I… I'm sorry, Miharu. I didn't know…"

"Well you would have known if you had listened to me the last time I listed off the spices," Miharu scolded in a calmer tone as he scratched the back of his head. He let out a heavy sigh and said in his normal apathetic voice, "Well, just try to listen next time, okay?"

"Okay…"

"Well, now that we've gotten past THAT argument, I shall proceed to start another. Who the hell is gonna clean this mess up?" I yelled at them, breaking up their gay little moment. (as cute as it was, it had to be broken up sooner or later)

Miharu slowly raised his hand and said, "I guess I'll have to do it."

"Well, good. Just remember to close up shop while you do that. I don't want people coming in here to be served charcoal curry," I ordered before leaving them to their work.

Not even two seconds after I had left the restaurant, I heard a loud crash, Mimi screaming, and some loud snuffing noises.

"Jeevas Chrysler, what now?" I screamed as I stormed right back into the restaurant. I bashed open the doors, looked about, and witnessed one of the strangest happenings of my life up till now. My eyes widened and I could feel myself gaping as I saw the horror that was laying before me.

… it was her…

Sunni the hobo was crawling on the ground like a centipede with rabies while sucking up the ash on the floor like a freaking vacuum cleaner! Even though everywhere she crawled, there wasn't a speck of dirt to be seen and she was leaving the place spotless, she was bad for business. I wasn't about to let her chase away my customers with her loud sucking, so I decided to chase her out.

Like a scene from a Tom and Jerry cartoon, I grabbed the nearest broom I could find and proceeded to chase the hobo around the room while whacking the broom on the ground every three seconds. Sadly, before I could catch her, she slid her way through the air duct. Knowing I was playing the antagonist cartoon character in this situation, I decided to play the part by shaking my fist at the air duct while shouting like an old geezer, "You rotten kids! Stay off my lanwn!"

I put the broom away before checking Miharu and Yoite for any seizures, aneurisms or heart attacks, and walked out of the restaurant when I was done. I clapped the filth off my hands and held my head high as I said, "You've done good, Dagas. You've done good."

* * *

><p>Remainder of the day: as normal as we could get it. True, we have a completely different definition of "normal", but that doesn't mean that we don't do any business here.<p>

Like I said, this is a fantasy outlet mall with fantasy store owners that each have their own store. As you can imagine, we do have A LOT of stores with some partnerships here and there. For instance; the furniture store. Suzaku Kururugi from Code Geass is the proud owner of that store. He's the happy-go-lucky salesman of the furniture. Honestly, when he first was hired, I was baffled that he had sold 20 furniture items in his first three days on the job. Suzy is VERY good at his job. Along with him, he is in a partnership with Lelouch Lamperouge, who is also good at his job… being that he's the lazy mascot. He sits on whatever chair or bed he likes with his foam finger raised high with pride(?) (not many people enjoy his company that much)

On the other hand, we also have one man owned stores around here like the toy store, Stiffs-R'-Us. Trust me, this has got to be the most ironic name that the store owner could have chosen since he just happens to be THE Undertaker. Sure, it looks like a perfectly normal toy store, and in a way, it is. There are many shelves that are packed to the last level with perfectly normal toys. You could consider it child safe… if you get rid of the fact that there's an undertaker's office in the back room. There's never been a kid that had wandered into that back room so we have yet to be sued for that little issue.

Putting those two stores aside, we have many other stores that have been made for merriment. We have the sports store, we have several restaurants, we have the pet store, Office Max, the arcade, Gormagon, and so on and so forth. And to think, throughout that list that you just wasted your time to read, I didn't even list off all of the stores!

Yes, our outlet mall is like a grand wonderland of goodies, fantasy, hobos and joy!  
>(wow, that sounded so gay!)<p>

Well… moving on! Again, the rest of the day was basically normal aside from a few minor issues. Nothing TOO out of the ordinary. Since I had just survived the day's troubles and the hordes of children, I was about ready to hit the sack. Though, there was one problem with that; we still had to close.

* * *

><p>"Alright you guys! It's 10:30! All of you need to start closing up shop!" I warned into my trusty bull-horn.<p>

"Oh my god! Thanks again you guys! This Sailor Moon cosplay is gonna be perfect for the next con in New York! You don't know how grateful I am for this! Thanks!" called out a random fangirl as she skipped out of the cosplay store, waving cheerfully at Hikaru and Kaoru. As usual, the two waved back with beaming smiles, happy that they were able to serve another customer.

"Come again soon!" the twins called back in unison. I found pleasing that they always did so good with the customers, but that was on any other day. I tend to be one of those people who gets extremely bitchy at the end of a crazy day. Therefore, no matter how good their business was doing, they sold something 30 seconds after closing on a day like this, I would be pushed to the limit.

I checked my watch and saw that it was now 10:32. I then walked right up to the ginger-headed twins, put my bull-horn right up in their faces, and yelled at an ear-shattering volume, "IT'S CLOSING TIIIIIME!"

At the sound of my screech, I could almost feel the ground quake under me as if it was scared of me too. On the roof of the cosplay store, my mind conjured up a cartoon-timed mushroom cloud that towered high over the rest of the stores. Though it was metaphorical, it seemed completely real to me.

The second I put down the bull-horn, I realized that the force of my scream had blown back the hair on both the twins, but on top of that, I feared that I had just accidentally blasted their ears inside-out. The two both stared at me, eyes bugging out of their heads, for a while as I glared at them with the ultimate bitch glare.

"I think somebody needs to get back on her happy pills," Hikaru mocked as he twisted his pinky finger in his damaged ear.

"WHAT?" Kaoru yelled. At this point, he wasn't able to hear anything.

Though the two had basically just gone deaf for the time being, that didn't mean they had lost their sight. Being that as it may, they both began to shake with fear as a menacing shadow fell upon us.

"What are you two both staring at? I just said, it's closing ti-" I never did finish my sentence. Before I could, the twins both held up a shaky finger to point at what was now standing behind me.

I heavily sighed. "What is it? Is there marker on my forehead again?"

"N-no… i-i-it's-" Before Kaoru could finish, we all heard the loud crack of someone's knuckles, raising the hairs on the back of my neck. I turned around and nearly though I would shit bricks when I saw Sebastian standing behind me, his eyes gleaming like in every other anime with that single yellow, gay little sparkle in each eye. Seeing this alerted me that Sebby REALLY meant business. I assumed the frightening look on his face was brought on by either my horrendous scream or the "Young Master". He continued to thoroughly crack each individual fingers with the gay little sparkle gleaming in his eyes as he sprouted his full on "I munna kill joo" grin that spelled disaster. He looked directly at me with that menacing look and said in one of the creepiest voices I had heard since I had met Belarus, "You have disturbed the young master's slumber. The young master is very displeased-"

Unfazed by what would be terrifying to any other human being, I looked Sebastian square into his demonic crimson eyes and rebutted with, "Oh, ho ho HO! I'll show you the definition of disturbance!"

Without a thing in the world to stop me, I gained a head start to the butler as I sprinted down the parking lot towards the pet store. He immediately got a good idea of what I was going to do and started to race after me. Despite the fact that he had super-demon speed, I was still just a bit faster than he was. Knowing that what I was about to do wouldn't be taken well by Sebastian and the "Young Master", I wanted to make a big deal out of it. The way I saw it, I would never be able to do something like this ever again for the duration of my immortal soul, so this had to be worth it.

To piss Sebastian off, I made sure to stomp up the stairs to Ciel's room in the loudest possible manor. With Sebby still chasing after me, I sped up the stairs in a quite noisy manor until I had finally reached the door to Ciel's room. In a way that would make anybody pissed, I bashed open Ciel's door and stomped right up to his bed. Magically, I pulled out a second bull-horn, placed one horn in front of the other and screamed right into the young boy's face as loud as I could at 10:38 at night, "WAAAAAAAAKE UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUP!"

At the sound of my roaring scream, Ciel hurled up out of bed with a startled look in his eyes and a powerful revolver tightly griped in his hands. He suddenly realized that it was me standing in front of him and, with a record breaking sneer plastered onto his face, she stuffed the revolver back under his pillow, shoved himself back under the heavy covers and demanded of the furious demon that was now looming over me, "Sebastian! Get her the hell out of here!"

I swiveled around just in time to see him say in a grim tone, "Yes, my lord." The demon had been given a direct order and would carry it out without fail. Though, he was a male and I was of the opposite gender so I was granted the upper hand in a fight against death. He lunged upward, ready to give me a face full of foot, but never completed this action. Before he could even slightly touch me, I bunched up my hand into a tightly bound fist and slugged him in the stomach to keep him vulnerable for the final blow. Yes, with Gormagon brand heavy combat boots, I proceeded to furiously smash Sebastian's balls into oblivion.

It felt pretty damn good to execute such a beautiful move in my opinion, but not so much in Sebastian's. That'll raise your voice up about an octive!

With the prideful demon now quivering on the floor in agony, I pulled out my bull-horn once more, placed it right next to his ear and screamed, "I'M PISSED!"

Leaving Sebastian to wallow in his awful misery, I marched to the front door of the store, feeling a mixture of lingering anger and complete pride. As I walked to the door, I noticed Leon leaning against the nearest concrete pillar in front of the store, obviously waiting for me.

"Aw shit! What now?" I mentally complained, fearing whatever issue he would have with me. Though, as I got closer to the door, I began to notice that the look on his face wasn't his normal forewarning face or apathetic look. In fact, it almost looked like he had a look of impressment in his eyes.

The moment I got outside, I saw Leon raise casually raise his hand up. My first thought was that he was waving at me so I raised my hand back. Once I did, out of the blue, he high-fived me and said, "Nice job, Dagas." For once in the entire time that I had known him, he gave me an approving smile.

I smiled back and said, "Why, thank you. I have to say, I do feel like I accomplished something tonight."

"Yeah, I'll say."

* * *

><p>Later that night (more like early morning) while I was, and had been in a deep sleep for about four hours, I suddenly woke up to the suspicious sound of my door creaking open. Startled and still too drowsy to see much more than a blur, I jumped out of bed to see who was there. When I took a good look around, I found nothing out of place and the door closed. "Heh… Must've dreamt it…" I murmured into the silence. I discarded the door situation from my mind and crawled back under my comfy covers to go back to sleep.<p>

Half a minute later, I began to hear a pair of footsteps. They were soft, but I could still clearly hear them. They came closer and closer until finally, I blurted out, "Who are you and why the hell are you in my room?"

I turned around again only to adjust my eyes to an energetic Falkner. The only strange part about him being in my room was the fact that he was balancing a soccer ball on top of his head.

"Sorry to wake you, but the vending machine is all out of Mello Yello," Falkner said without bothering to look me in the eye.

"Nmf… what time is it?" I asked as I rubbed my eyes clear of the sleepy fog that I saw.

"3:26."

"Aaaaaand why is that my problem at three thirty in the freaking morning?"

"Cuz last week you took the keys to the machine away from Bard cuz he was putting Red Bull and beer in it."

"Ooooooh… right… Wait, how is it out already? I just refilled the machine this morning."

"Beats me. Maybe it's jammed. Could you check it out?"

"… Only if you tell me why you have that soccer ball on your head."

"Oh! I'm trying to break a record! Some kids on a soccer team bet ten bucks that I couldn't break it!"

"Oh, well in that case, your record breaker," I paused to swat the ball off his head. "is broken."

"Aw, dang! Now I can't get my ten bucks!"

"Deal with it," I mumbled as I shuffled my feet into my pair of fuzzy eskimo-like slippers.

"Oh, by the way, Dagas, nice outfit," Falkner teased as he looked at pink, baggy, kitty pajama pants and grey spaghetti strap.

"Oh, for the love of- why have I hired mostly guys to work here?"

"Actually, you have hired all guys."

"Greil doesn't count! I don't know what gender he could possibly be placed under and I don't wanna find out!"

"Oh, right."

We left my office and made our way to said vending machine that was sitting right outside the door to Falkner's part of the mall. I unlocked it and found that Falkner had been right on the spot; 4 full packs worth of Mello Yello were now missing.

"What the hell? I don't believe this! This is impossible! How could that much Mello Yello be gone in one day?"

"Exactly! That's what I thought… uh, Dagas."

"What?" I stressfully groaned.

"There's a squirrel on your head," he said, a single blue eye brow raised and a finger pointed right above me.

In disbelief, I slowly inched my hand up my head until I felt a furry creature clamber onto my palm. Its' fluffy tail brushed against my fingers as I lowered my hand down to my eye level to see if it really was a squirrel. It was. It was tiny, and furry and it was holding a single Mello Yello can in its' tiny paws.

"Aw!" I exclaimed as my eyes began to sparkle with wonder. "It's sooooo cute- why does it have a mini Hitler moustache?" Yes, it did indeed have a black tuft of Hitler fuzz on its' upper lip, and the sight of it was just about the creepiest thing I had ever seen. I found it so sad that the Squirrel would have looked so much cuter if it wasn't for the moustache!

Before I could utter another sound, the squirrel jumped off my hand and ran off with the Mello Yello can to the nearest pillar. Behind the pillar, I could hear the sound of the soda can being expertly cracked open. Immerging from behind the pillar, Sunni the hobo crawled into view with the four packs worth of soda stuffed into a huge burlap sack that she had slung over her shoulder. In her right hand, she held the squirrel's Mello Yello, a look of pride gleaming in her eyes. The hobo took a sip of her stolen Mello Yello, sending off a victorious glare towards me, before poofing away with her Hitler squirrel in a puff of hobo smoke.

Falkner gave me a confused look as he asked, "What exactly just happened?"

"I don't know. I'm just gonna pretend that this was a dream and go back to sleep. By the way, here's the ten bucks you're gonna owe those kids tomorrow. Good luck with that," I yawned out as I handed Falkner a 100 Grand candy bar and shuffled away.

"Uh, yeah… thanks?"


	4. Chapter Three

Chapter 3: This is Halloween, This is Halloween, Children Scream in the Dead of Night!

I woke up the next morning, groggy and legs aching from running around so much all of yesterday. My eyes fluttered open and immediately locked on the window at the foot of my bed. It looked like it was going to be a nice day out today, and I was quite content with that. I rubbed my sticky eyes and rolled to my side to face the door which I had expected to be opened by someone by now. To my dismay, I broke out of my sleepy nature to find a very stressed looking transvestite looming right over me. I nearly screamed as I realized that he had been standing there for quite a while, waiting for me to wake up.

"Aw, shit! Who told Greil about Sebastian?" I mentally figured as the bags under my eyes from the night before reappeared.

"You killed my Sebby!" Greil screamed at me. Cuz, you know, that's what everyone want's their alarm clock to scream at them in the morning.

I shot straight up out of my bed as I heard that arrangement of words. "What? I KILLED him?"

"Well, no, you didn't kill him… but he can't walk anymore… besides, you completely ruined my chances of getting it on with my Sebby last night!" he cried.

"Okay, TMI Greil! TMI!"

"I had this whole plan to romantically seduce him, which you crushed completely! How am I supposed to have any children with him if he has no wang?"

"Oh my god! Stop! I don't need to hear ANY of this!"

"You kicked off his balls!"

"Shut up, shut up, shut up! Urusait! Se taire! De Mund halten! Callar! I don't care, just shut up!" I screamed in exactly 5 languages. With this, I had finally gotten his attention, though his dramatic sniffling was still a little distracting. Feeling remorse for yelling at the dramatic little man, I scooted up to him and patted him on the back, saying comfortingly, "Aw, Greil. I'm sorry… I had no idea you would get this upset." Wrong; I was, in fact, praying that he wouldn't get this upset.

"Well I am upset," he sniffled. "My Sebby-chan is hurt, and that makes me upset!"

"Greil, I'm really sorry. I had to do what I did. He was gonna eat me," I said in a perfectly normal tone.

"No! Sebby would never do such a thing!"

"I hate to break it to you, but he would. He totally would have because the "young master" told him to."

Greil suddenly acquired a quite sad expression and thumped down onto the edge of my bed, his lip starting to quiver like a sad puppy dog. "Why doesn't he treat me all nice and respectful like that? Why does he always ignore me?"

To prevent him from breaking out into a sob fest, I pulled myself right up next to him on the edge of the bed and said encouragingly, "Aw, don't worry! He'll come around! Just don't be as pushy as you always are. That drives people like him away. Just be nice to him and he'll change soon enough."

"You really think so?" he sniffled.

"I know so! Just give him a little space and he'll warm up to the idea real soon. I promise."

"You swear?"

"Pinky swear! I would never lie to you, girl!"

"O-okay."

"Alright, now go on and tell everybody to start opening up shop, okay?"

"Alright! I'll do it! Thank you, Dagas-sama!"

"No problem." I kept silent until I heard the door downstairs slam shut. "Heh… I probably lied…"

* * *

><p>"Ha ha! I never knew walking around your house blind-folded could be so much fun! This rocks!" I giggled with my hands jutted out in front of me to prevent from smacking into a wall. I started to get excited as I reached the stairs and started to walk down to the kitchen. I was just about an inch away from stepping on the last stair before freezing in my tracks as something cottony started to attack my face. Thinking it was a giant, man eating spider, I began to scuttle around the lower half of my house while screaming and flailing my arms in the air like a mad man, the blindfold still on my face.<p>

"Oowah! Get it off! Get it off!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. I continued to run frantically around my home until my head made contact with a hard surface and I fell to the ground.

"Meh…" I mumbled as I pulled the blindfold away from my eyes. I looked up and saw the small indent my head had made on my wall before saying in a drunken voice, "Heh, heh… wall…" I reached down and ran my hand over the carpet. "Heh, heh… floor!" I placed my hand on my head to finally figure out what had groped my face and came back with a blob of fake spider webs clasped in my hand.

"Huh… it's that time of year again… Halloween… Looks like you guys are planning on overdoing it again, aren't you? Morty? B?"

"Oh, most certainly!" B chimed in from behind my office door, a satisfied smirk spread across his face.

"So which one of you set up the cob webs? You or Morty?"

"Neither! It was my Gengar this time!" Morty cheerfully said, pointing at the dark purple, red eyed, chubby midget Pokémon who, with its creepy smile, started up a maniacal laugh.

"I never liked you!" I snarled, pointing at the purple blob. The Gengar took offence to that and decided to sadly waddle away.

"Alright, I'll see you back at the shop!" Morty called to him with a beaming smile.

"So, has anybody else started decorating yet?" I asked, looking up at B.

"Do you really need to ask? It's exactly 14 days till Halloween! Of course everybody is setting up! Also, you might want to get outside soon. Just about everyone is waiting for your permission to get some new Halloween stuff shipped in… By the way, could you-"

"Sign a shipment form for autumn candles?" I cut him off, finishing B's sentence.

"Yeah, could you do that?"

"Sure, where's the form?" I sighed.

"Back at the shop. Oh, just out of curiosity, have you even considered getting off the floor yet?"

"Naw. My carpet's nice, so I haven't considered that until now."

"You know, you do have a pretty nice looking carpet," Morty inquired.

"Yeah, it is nice…"

"Well, come on, now. We'd better get going before people start to open at 8."

"Aw, okay," I groaned before pulling myself up. I followed the two and soon walked to my office towards my doom- I mean door!

"Holy crap, B! You weren't kidding!" I exclaimed, eyes bugging out of my head.

"What, did you really think I was lying?" he scoffed.

And damn, he sure wasn't! No joke; everyone was either decorating or silently waiting with shipment forms in hand. All around us, stores were being decorated on the inside and out. At the end of the parking lot, I spotted Bard talking with the guy who lent us his special pickup truck that we borrow for the hay rides that we do every year, and around the rest of the area, I spotted Harry and Cedric conjuring never-rot pumpkins and piles of fake spider webs for the other store owners.

It got to a point where I was so sucked into my favorite holiday that I almost sprung 3 feet into the air when I felt a small tap on my shoulder. I quickly turned around to see before me none other than the girly-looking gardener, Finny.

"Nyah! Jeeze, Finny! You scared the crap out of me! What do you want?"

"Ciel-kun wants to know where to put the cob webs at his store. He needs to find a place to put them where Pluto can't eat them. Same with the rest of his decorations."

I sighed. "First challenge of the day: finding a way to not have that mangy mutt eat the décor. That'll be a challenge."

"Well, here's the thing, he found a place to put them all, but," he took a quick pause to stifle a giggle. "Ciel-kun can't reach the places he wants to put them even on a step stool!"

"Oh-ho, I see! Why don't we go help the little midget, shall we?"

"Yeah! Let's go!" he said before speeding off.

"Hey, wait up!"

* * *

><p>The moment we got to the pet shop, we walked in to see something that, in my opinion, was more hilarious than a squirrel chugging a mocha-frappe. With Sebastian "out sick" for the day, Ceil was left on his own with the store looking pretty pathetic. Ciel, helpless as he was, was jumping up and down on the three-step step stool, struggling to stick the first set of cob webs onto the gerbil cage shelf.<p>

At the other end of the room, Pluto was stumbling about the store on his hands and knees while wearing the strangest get-up of the day. As opposed to his random tux that Sebastian would normally force him into, Pluto wore a Skeleton Jack suit while struggling vigorously to pull a pumpkin-shaped bucket off of his head.

"Ack! Why can't I reach?" Ciel grumbled in a fit of rage. "Damn my height! Damn holidays! Damn SHELF! Obey me, slave!" he screamed at the shelf that towered so much higher than him.

"Well, well, well. Isn't this just a sight to behold? You need some help there, Ciel?" I asked in a cocky tone with my hand raised above my eyes like a sailor looking off into the distance.

"No! I don't need help any help from you!" he snarled, his eye angrily twitching. He turned back to the shelf and continued with his cursing, bunny-hop fit.

"Uh, Ciel-kun…" Finny began.

"WHAT?" Ciel barked back.

"Ah! Uh… Ciel-kun. Don't you remember what Sebastian-san has told you before?"

"What? Don't read Poe before bed? Yeah, I know that!"

"No, not thaaaaat! I mean what he told you about respecting others and how it's not a bad thing to have to ask for help. Do you remember now?"

Ciel whirled around to face Finny, a vicious look in his on eye. You could almost feel the tension grow as Ciel's death glare began to counteract with Finny's shining emerald eyes and beaming smile.

Sadly, Ciel eventually admitted defeat. He let out a heavy sigh and said in an irritated tone, "Ugh! Fine… Finny, Dagas, I-" he paused to choke back his pride. "I need help with the decorations…"

"Ah, ah, ah! What's the word I'm looking for?" Finny cheerily asked.

"Damn, I'll kill y-!" He sighed again. "Fine… p-p-please?"

"There! Now we'll help you out! Was that so hard?" Finny asked, hands playfully on his hips.

"Yes, it was, Finnian! Now please help me with these!"

I sarcastically gasped. "My word! The world must be coming to an end! The young master said a polite word! Dear god, is this the apocalypse?"

"Shut up!" he snarled, gritting his teeth down to the gums.

"Alright, alright, we'll help. But if you are going to be so bitchy, could you at least try to act decent?"

"Yes, fine. Now one of you help me up. And the other, get that damn bucket off that mongrel's head before he hurts himself!"

"Right," we both simultaneously said before running off to our different directions. Finny scuttled off to go lift Ciel up… with one hand. I ran to the other end of the store to make sure he wasn't killing himself with the candy bucket.

"Here, Pluto! Pup, pup, pup!" I beckoned the dog over. At the sound of my voice, the creature started to quickly stumble to where I was kneeling on the floor.

"Good boy!" I praised when he bumped into my shin.

"Auuuuu!" he cried out. I looked at where the bucket was and saw that it was cutting off some of the circulation to his head.

"Oh, quit your bitchin', you stupid dog. You're the one who got yourself into this mess, so stop your complaining!"

"Auf…" he quietly agreed.

"Alright, now hold still- gyah!" I yelped, flying onto my ass with only the broken handle to the bucket in my hand. The bucket, unfortunately, still remained on the dumb dog's head. "Damn it! You stupid mutt!" I yelled out in frustration.

"Did you get the bucket off?" Finny asked with Ciel still balancing on his hand.

"No!" I grumbled back.

"Hey, Ciel-kun," Finny called up to the boy.

"What now?"

"Dagas seems to be having a lot of trouble with Pluto. Do you mind if I just leave you on top of this shelf and go help her?"

"Good lord, no! Are you daft? You can help her, but don't just leave me on this shelf!" he demanded.

"Alright then. Thanks Ciel-kun!" he said as he did the exact opposite of what he said, leaving Ciel on the shelf to go help me.

"You moron!" Ciel angrily called back.

Trotting over to Pluto and I, Finny grabbed onto the bucket and said, "Pull with me, Dagas."

"I seriously don't think YOU would need my help," I assured him.

"Nonsense! Come and help so Pluto can thank us both!"

"If you insist…"

"That's the spirit!" Finny said with a goofy grin.

We yanked and pulled, but even with Finny's super strength, the bucket didn't budge.

"Oh, Pluto! You got that bucket stuck on your head real good," Finny groaned before pushing a stray strand of his blond hair away from his face. "So, what are we gonna do now? We've done all we really can do," he sighed out.

Pluto, sad that he was in such a state, mimicked Finny and let out a sigh of his own. Suddenly, Pluto sprang up from where he sat and began to sprint around the store while loudly howling from inside the bucket.

"Gack! What is that damn dog doing now?" Ciel furiously asked.

"Yeah, like we know!" I yelled back.

"Pluto! Come back!" Finny screamed as he chased after the mental mutt. At the sound of Finny's voice, the demon dog immediately charged towards us, ramming into both of us at full speed as if we were the clowns in a blind-bull rodeo. We screamed and flailed as we flew through the store until slamming right into the shelf that Ciel had been perched on top of. With the force of our explosive impact, the shelf swayed back and forth before finally toppling Ciel off the top along with an avalanche of gerbil cages.

"Gyah!"

"Gack!"

"Hurk! I think I just punctured a lung!"

Crashing, booms and bangs echoed throughout the entire store as more and more things fell on top of us, burying us in a pile of hard objects.

"Son of a biznich! What the hell's gotten into that dog?" I screamed as the weight of both Ciel and the cages began to really take its toll.

"Hell, if I know!" Ciel screamed back.

"P-pu…" Finny struggled to call out to the dog.

"No! Finnian, don't you DARE call that wretched beast over here!" Ceil snapped while glaring down at Finny with horrific disgust.

"S-sorry..."

As the two started a mental showdown, I managed to wriggle myself out of the mountain of cages and people. When I had emerged, I found the two still silently having their little fight. I decided then to silently crawl away from the scene of the crime. I looked forward and found Pluto trotting towards me, head bowed and his face excreting endless strings of whimpers.

"You dumb dog, why did you-" I paused in the middle of my sentence as soon as I got a good look at the dog-beast. As I looked into his eyes- stop right there! Note; I looked into his EYES! Therefore, you'd think that he got the bucket off, right? Ha, ha! You were WRONG, foolish weakling! He had simply burnt a hole through the bucket with his fire breath when he had sighed.

"Yo, guys! I figured out what was up with the dog!" I hollered back.

"Well? Spit it out already!" Ciel demanded.

"He burnt his face and made a hole in the bucket."

"Oh, well doesn't THAT figure?" he grumbled.

"Well what are you waiting for? Ask Pluto to burn off the rest of the bucket!" Finny suggested as his eyes began to light up once again.

"If you say so. Hey, dog! Try burning off the rest of the bucket! Go ahead!"

"No! Don't let him-" Ciel screamed as he tried to stop us. But it was too late. Without warning, a large beam of inferno burst out from the previously small hole that had been made in the candy collecting device. The surrounding shelves began to melt away along with the east wall as the visible waves of heat began to coil their way around the entire store. I fearfully lay flat on the checkered floor while the sizzling of the surrounding area continued to increase until…

* * *

><p>"Yeah, well if you want me to tell you what I got, it's gonna cost you," Izaya said to his client on the other line while looking out the big window at the front of the store. "Nope, I'm not talking unless I know you're gonna pay."<p>

"Hey, could you shut up? You're breaking my concentration," Shizuo growled while mindlessly polishing yet another street sign.

Instantly in response, Izaya spun his chair around, looked Shizuo square in the eye and pulled down one lower eyelid while sticking out his tongue.

"Y'know, one of these days, Izaya. One of these days, the gods are going to rain fire down on your FACE for being such an ass all the time!" Shizuo growled with a nasty glare.

"Yeah, right! Like that's ever gonna ha-"

At that exact ironic moment, Pluto's beam if intense flame burst through the wall and sped right past Izaya's desk, nearly sending him into cardiac arrest. Without even looking up for a second, Shizuo said with a satisfied smirk, "Told you so."

"Boo, you whore."

* * *

><p>"Ugh… I didn't mean like that, Pluto…" I moaned. As shocked as all of us were, the dog seemed to be happy enough that the bucket was gone.<p>

I looked up and cringed as I saw the massive hole he had created. I estimated and figured it was about 3, maybe 4 feet in diameter. Within seconds, I saw Shizuo poke his head out from behind the hole. His eyes curiously looked around at every burn and currently lit flame that illuminated the store. He stopped in his tracks and looked right at me and, with a startled look about him, said, "Damn! What happened here?"

I weakly held up a finger to point at the now happily smiling dog.

He gave me a confused look and simply shrugged it off. He turned around and said, "You might wanna patch up that hole before the customers notice."

"W-will do…"

* * *

><p>"Wow, that took a while," I said with a smile as I looked at the fixed walls and shelves.<p>

"It did NOT! It took five minutes and you didn't even do anything!" Ciel interjected.

"Yeah, well neither did you, short stack, so you're not one to talk."

"May I please retire back to my quarters for the rest of the day?" Sebastian pleaded.

"Sure! Sorry we had to wake you, Sebastian. And thanks for helping fix the wall!" I commended as Sebastian began to weakly walk back up the stairs.

"Not a problem. It is but my duty as the butler of Earl Phantomhive to accomplish whatever is ordered of me. After all, if I do say so myself, I am one hell of a butler," he said with a weak smile he had to force out.

"Okay, now seriously, go back to bed before you pass out," I ordered.

"Thank you."

Once he had left, I looked up at the clock that hung over the cash register that read 9:05.

"Oh, good! It's only a little while after opening time! Awesome!" I said while giving a thumbs up to the clock. "Hey, Finny!"

"Yeeeees~" he chimed.

"Go tell Shizuo and Izaya that they can open up now, okay?"

"Okee-dokee!" he said before happily prancing out of the store.

"Well, Ciel, I gotta hand it to you: even with his injury slowing him down a bit, your butler did a fantastic job on fixing everything back up again in less than 10 minutes," I said with a pleased smile.

"Well he should be able to do at least that kind of a simple task. After all, he is MY butler," he proudly said with his arms crossed against his chest.

"Oh, come on, Ciel-kun! You could at least give him the credit he's due for all of his hard work," Finny scolded as he popped back into the store.

"I do give him credit! I'm saying that as my butler, he is expected to do what he does to the best of his abilities.'

"Oh, whatever! Does it really matter?" I rhetorically asked. "Well, I'm going to go make sure everything is in order. Ciel, go back to regular duties, and Finny, go clean up whatever needs to be cleaned."

"Alright!" Finny cheered.

"Oh, if I must," Ciel groaned. With that, I walked out the door and left that whole mess behind me.

* * *

><p>"Okay, that'll be $6.99." Mello announced as he pressed down on a few buttons on the register.<p>

"Sweet! Thanks for hooking me up, man," said the emo teen who was placing a wad of cash down on the counter in exchange for an older Marilyn Manson CD.

"Any time. Come back soon."

"You know it! You know what, I have a feeling I'm gonna come back here to look for a birthday present for my girlfriend."

"Perfect. I bet she'll like whatever you get her."

"I hope so. Thanks!"

As the emo teen walked out the glass door, I walked right in, brightening up the gothic store with my merry skipping and my happy humming of the song Love and Joy.

"Dag' if you're gonna act this happy then go out of my store. You'll ruin business," Mello warned me while shooting off a discouraged glare.

"Well, I would be more depressing if I had read my "joke" before I came in here," I replied as I held up a piece of banana gum for Mello to see.

"Oh god, you went to Masaomi's stand before you came here? No wonder you're so overly happy."

"Yeah, it makes me kinda angry that one kiosk can change my mood so drastically. It's scary, you know?"

"I guess so."

"Well let's see what he came up with this time." I paused to unwrap the gum and pop it into my mouth. While chewing, I read out loud what the slip of paper said. "What kind of hats do you wear in the north pole?"

"I don't know. What?"

"Awwwwwwww!"

"What?"

"Ice caps."

"Awwwwww! That's horrible!" Mello groaned. "Man, his jokes seem to be getting worse by the day."

"Yeah, no doubt about that… well, I guess I'm gonna have to go congratulate him later," I said after sticking the wrapper back into my pocket.

"What? Why? For coming up with the shittiest jokes of all time?"

"Nope, for stealing his first joke from a popsicle stick."

"Oh!" he paused for a quick face-palm. "He didn't!"

"Oh, he did. Anyways, I did come here for a reason. How's business going?"

"It's going great!" he said with a bit of a smile. "Since Halloween is just around the corner, people have been coming in and out of here like crazy."

"And your profit for today so far is…"

"82 dollars and 19 cents."

"Holy crap! That much? And in the first hour and a half? Nice work!"

"Yeah. I'm awesome, I know," he sarcastically boasted.

"No you're not! Dude, don't lie!" yelled one of the customers in the back of the store, hiding his face behind the Green Day T-shirt he was holding up.

"Oh, ha ha ha! Real funny, Karter!"

"It's only funny because it's true! HA!"

"Well, that's fantastic, Mello. Good job. And, by the way," I paused and leaned up over the counter, close enough to hear me in a whisper. "what's the word on the undertaker?"

"I don't know any huge, first hand details, but a little birdy told me that he plans to go "all out" this year."

"Damn. How so?"

"I heard that he's planning on paying the wizard kids to make magical decorations."

"And?"

"I also heard that he's planning on opening up the undertaker office to the public and calling it a haunted house to cover it up."

"Oh my god! He'll scare the children to death!" I anxiously hissed.

"More business for him, I suppose. But, hey, if anyone asks about it, you didn't hear that info from me."

"Gotcha. I gotta go check out your lead. I'm going to go ask the others."

"Might wanna go ask Izaya first. I mean, it is his job to know those kinds of things."

"Right. Thanks."

Walking out of the store, I began to wonder if what Mello had told me was true or if it was just a rumor based off of what the Undertaker did last year. In a sudden rush, I began to remember the tragedy that was last years' Halloween that I have been struggling to repress. I remembered the curious children who noticed what had started it all; the pumpkins.

Last year, the undertaker had created some sort of chemical and had poured it on the pumpkins. It had an effect on them that made them talk when children passed by. It was all going just fine at first, until one of the pumpkins went rouge. One minute, the pumpkin was making crude Halloween jokes, the next, it was inches away from biting off Falkner's foot. After stitching up his big toe, we evacuated all of the customers, made it look like we were fumigating the stores, and pulled out our weapons, ready for a full scale war. The entire whole of the mall, once clean and spotless, soon looked like a scene from the movie Zombie Land.

I uncontrollably shuttered at the thought of the same event reoccurring… or worse! What if it would take more than some ammo, a few guns and some hard hit punches to take out whatever the undertaker had created this year?

"My god! What is he going to cause now?" I strenuously thought. That was it. I had to find out what he was really going to do before something like the pumpkin massacre of '09 happened again!

* * *

><p>"So, let me get this straight; you let a demonic dog burn a hole through my wall, interrupted one of my most important business calls of the month, and now you're asking for my information for FREE? What shit were you smoking?" Izaya rudely questioned, an expectant look on his face.<p>

"Cocaine? Heroine? I don't know! Just give me the info before last year happens again!"

"What, you mean with the pumpkins? That's a one year thing. The undertaker would never use the same idea twice in a row," he objected before leaning back in his wheeled chair and pulling a nail filer out from his desk. "Although, I did hear a little bit of info from a few of the other employees here…"

I slammed my fists down onto the desk, causing everything on it to spring up. Izaya didn't look up from his invisible nails for even a millisecond. "Hey, no need to pull a Shizu-chan fit."

"I want answers, Orihara! I'm your boss! Tell me now or you're fired!"

"Hah! You think that will change anything? I LIVE here! And, besides, my customers are the ones who pay the most cash to this outlet mall. Even if you got rid of me, I'd still be here and you'd be out of business." He looked up from his nail filing for a second or two only to give me his usual "I can blackmail you with anything" smile, (which I'm still convinced is a semi-rape face) and look back down.

I gave him an angered sigh and groaned regrettably, "Fine, fine. What do I need to give you to talk."

"Show me 50 bucks and I'll give you the information."

"50? Really?"

"Or would you rather like to decline this friendly discount and pay the regular 200 per piece?"

"Wha-… What crack have YOU been smoking?"

"Imported Chinese coke. Now show me the money or it's no deal."

"Oh, fine!" I groaned before pulling my second wallet out of my back pocket and showing him the 50 bucks. "I'll give you the money once you give me the information."

"Hmm, you drive a hard bargain. You must be doing great in the business world. Alright, I'll spill. The undertaker has been planning on opening up his office and calling it a haunted house. He says it's going to be "safe for the kids", but I don't believe a word of it."

"Yeah, that's what Mello told me."

"Indeed, he had his facts right. Adding on, I also heard that he's paying Harry and Cedric a pretty hefty wad of cash and giving them lessons on the dark arts in exchange for having them help him out with the "effects" for the event."

"That, I didn't hear…" I said, an anxious look spreading onto my face.

"Alright, now hand over the 100 bucks."

"What? You said you'd only charge me 50!"

"Per PIECE. I gave you two bits of info so you gotta pay 100."

"Oh, whatever, ass hole! Here's your damn cash!" I furiously yelled at him as I threw 100 "dollars" directly at his face. He didn't scream or blow a vein; all he did was quietly pick up his payment that I had scattered about his desk. He slowly lifted the cash to eye level and began to count, but before he even counted a single dollar, he suddenly found something odd about his pay… like the fact that it was 100 pastel colored dollars.

"This is… Monopoly money?" The moment he looked up, he instantly realized that, not only was I gone, but that I had also left him a note with the cash.

'Dear Izaya,

realize that this right here is your pay for the rest of the month. This is also your punishment for trying to scam me out of my money.

PS, don't spend it all in one place!

3 Dagas'

He crumpled up the money and the note in his fist, dropped it on the floor and maliciously stomped on it while Shizuo, walking in from the back room, began to stifle a laugh at the fact that I was watching him from the other side of the store window. Izaya rarely gets too pissed, but when he does, it sure is a fun thing to watch.

* * *

><p>"Just don't tell on me to the underworld or the magical realm; they'll have my head. Hee, hee," the undertaker croaked to the two young wizards. I peeked around the corner and found them making the deal behind the loiterer's back alley, probably hoping they wouldn't be spotted. Though, this hope went completely in vain, for I had been quietly listening behind the plant next to the front door of the toy store, catching every single word they spoke.<p>

"So those two were right!" I thought as I silently listened in.

"But, Mr. Undertaker, this is A LOT of muggle money. Are you sure?" Cedric asked.

"Oh, don't worry about it. You deserve this for what kind of work you're going to be doing. Now get to it and be happy with what I paid you," he assured them as they walked back into the store through the front door.

"That sneaky bastard! He knows he's supposed to check with me before he puts up anything drastic!" thought as I glared at the grinning creep. "Yo, Bard," I whispered into my walkie-talkie after wriggling back behind the plant.

"Yeah?"

"Meet me down at the toy store."

"Why? What did he do?"

"Nothing yet, but I need you to keep an eye on him for the day."

"Roger. I'll be over in a second."

"Awesome. See you then… oh, and bring your bazooka gun with you."

"Smaller or larger one?"

"Smaller so that you can hide it easier."

"Got it."

"Well that went over better than I expected," I said as I put away the walkie-talkie.

"How so?" croaked the one voice I didn't want to hear.

"Uh… taking care of that Rolo kid today. Bard just found him before he started to rip up today's newspaper. Ha ha…" I stammered. I began to feel the small beads of sweat forming on my face and the hairs on the back of my neck start to rise as the undertaker held my wary gaze. I faked a smile to mask my fear of this powerful man that loomed over me with a suspicious grin spread wide on his face.

"Eh," he shrugged. "Good for you, child," he said as he patted me on the head with his cold, clammy hand. Without asking any questions like I had anticipated, he instead made his way to the front door without a care. He stopped suddenly as a wood-paneled station wagon pulled up to the closest spot to his store.

"Oh, that must be Dave. I best be getting things set up. I can't wait to show him how pretty I made his wife look. Hee, hee, hee." Changing his direction, the undertaker began to waltz towards the back door to wait for his customer.

I glared at the waltzing freak as I allowed myself to fall back, cracking my ass on the sidewalk. I refused to have a reaction and instead continued to glare at where he once stood. I crossed my arms and grumbled defensively, "I am 15, damn it! I'm NOT a child! Stupid undertaker…"

* * *

><p>"Bard, have you found anything yet? Over," I asked into my walkie-talkie.<p>

"Nope, no suspicious movement at all," he replied.

"Didn't copy that, over."

"What do you mean by that?"

"You haven't finished your sentence. You have to finish it with the word over. Over."

"Not this again!" he sighed.

"Not this again WHAT, Bard? Over."

"Oh, dear lord… over."

"Okay, good, I can hear you now. Over."

"Y'know, I'm gonna kick your ass one of these days JUST for this. Over."

"Does not compute. Over."

"You little… Wait! I'm seeing something!"

At this, I ceased my immature child's-play. "What do you see?"

"Oh… my… god…"

"What? What happened?"

"There's a little kid. Caucasian. Male. Estimated age of five. He just opened the door to the undertaker's office… and there's a customer in there!"

"Holy shit! This can't be good!"

* * *

><p>"Mommy! Mommy! I wanna see what's in that toy room!" a small boy cheered as he began to usher his mother towards the door that read "Keep Out!" on a big red sign.<p>

"No sweetie. That door says to keep out. That means we don't go in there. Okay?" the mother cooed at her curious son.

"But mooooooooommieeeee!" the child cried.

"No sweetie! No means no! Besides, we're here to get a birthday gift for your little sister. We're not here to fool around. Listen sweet-heart, I'm going to go pay for your sister's present. While I'm doing that you can go look at all the toys you want. Just stay out of that room, okay hun?"

"Okay mommy," the boy chimed, batting his eye lashes at his mother. As she walked off, the little boy whispered to himself, "Suuuuuure I'll stay away from the door. Of course, mommy. Heh, I wanna see the secret toys behind the door."

With a pair of tiny hands, the little boy jiggled the door a bit until the knob released. He cracked it open a bit, simply to take a quick peek. As it opened, he began to hear a pair of voices. The first was the familiar twisted croak of the store owner. The second was the voice of a grieving stranger. The second man sobbed and wept as he looked down at a figure that lay in a big black box.

"It might take some more time to clean up the rest of her face, being the way she was killed, but don't you worry about that. She'll be as beautiful as the day you met her. I can make sure of that," the undertaker croaked.

The child's eyes grew wider than they ever have before as he witnessed what happened before his very eyes. Reaching into the box, the undertaker pulled up the head of a young, fair-haired woman. Her body was slender and fine, a silky white dress clinging onto her skinny waist. The stranger reached out and slowly began to stroke his thick hand through her fair, straight, chocolate brown hair. The woman was flawlessly gorgeous. Well, accept for one thing; her skin color was drained. The unfamiliar woman in the box was as pale as a ghost.

Soon, the young boy became filled with dreadful horror as the strange woman's head lolled to the side. Once her entire face was in full view, the 5 year old loudly gasped, discovering the gaping hole and the dried blood that went all the way through the woman's forehead.

The undertaker immediately took notice to the boy and turned to face the small figure behind the crack in the door way. He cracked a sinister smile as he realized what the child had seen. "Well well, what do we have here? Looks like this unfortunate child is illiterate. Poor, poor little boy," he croaked as he stepped forward towards the traumatized child. "Perhaps I should teach you how to read signs, first. Hee, hee, hee!"

Without another moment's hesitation, the child fell to the floor, shrieking his heart out. He screamed and screamed, causing the bones on the hanging skeleton on the far end of the room to rattle. Soon enough, the child went silent from both loss of breath and the fact that the new shadow behind him had overpowered his fear of the corpse. Slowly, the child turned to see an even more horrific sight than the woman. It was, in fact, two demonic looking people both looming right over his tiny body and both bearing a knife. One held a large pocketknife, the other held a plastic McDonald's knife. One was a pissed information broker, the other was a hobo. They both stood beside each other, completely still, while wearing the creepiest smiles, their knives brought up to eye level.

The child, with blood shot eyes and his entire body quivering with fear, looked the two of them in the eye and they were here to save him. But, unfortunately for the child, he thought wrong. These two, you see, were both here with a vengeance. Though very different people, both had a deep hatred for small humans. Because of this hatred, they were both drawn here by the hideous screeching of this pathetic little child.

The child tried to say something, but before even a single phrase had escaped his lips, both the hobo and the broker cocked their heads to the side like a possessed maniac and simultaneously said in a creepy chime, "I hate children."

The child was near to screaming out once again, but soon enough, Bard, like I had ordered, swooped in and played his role as crowd control. He came in and held back the rest of the customers and tried to convince them that everything was under control, but as the parents could see, it wasn't really. This had never happened before and we were very unprepared. This meant that we needed to bring in the heavy artillery. We needed another child to distract Sunni and someone that Izaya hated more than children to distract him. Yes, that's right, we needed to bring in-

"Finnian, reporting for action!"

"Shizuo, ready to maul and annoying little flea!"

Yeah, that's right! The two strongest employees in the place: Shizuo and Finny. If this wasn't going to solve the problem, then there was nothing that could.

Instantly, Izaya drew his attention away from the child and towards his arch rival with whom he worked with. "Well, well, if it isn't Izaya-kun. I see you're enjoying this fine afternoon to the fullest," Shizuo angrily said as he prepped himself to throw the biggest punch he could muster.

"Oh, but of course, Shizu-chan," he chimed with a snarky grin. "I mean, what better way to spend an afternoon than experimenting with the behaviors of a young parasitic human, hmm?"

"Oh, why don't you can it, Izaya? You'll ruin the act," he said, gritting his teeth to hold back his immense rage.

"Act? What act?" he snorted.

"Our act for Halloween, of course," Finny cheerfully said, striking a ringmaster's voice. Yeah, that was the plan. Pathetic and last minute, but crazy enough for the public to believe it. "Sorry for the scare, little boy!" he said as he patted the shell-shocked boy on the head. "This was all part of promoting our "Scare of a Lifetime" event at the Chicago Outlet Mall, which will be completely set up by tomorrow! Stop by tomorrow when the mall opens and experience the scare of a lifetime! Sorry for the disturbance, folks!" As Finny turned back to the front door, Shizuo gave him the "all clear" signal as he dragged Sunni to the side by her hood.

"Wait, wait, how come-" Izaya tried to complain before Finny picked him up off his feet and carried him off, kicking and swinging his knife in the air.

"Please stop by tomorrow," Shizuo pathetically waved to the crowd as they began to discuss with each other about coming to see what it was.

"Yeah! We did it!" Finny cheered with his hands waving in the air once they were out of the store.

"Don't pull a dumble dora the explorer on me, Finnian," Shizuo scowled. "Wait a second… Where's Izaya?" he angrily asked while, unknowingly, dropping the hobo too.

"Oh, he's right… oh no…"

"You let that flea go? Finnian! You dumbass!"

"I'm sorry, Shizuo! I didn't-" his speech was instantly cut off by a blast of smoke that came out of nowhere, sending the reek of hobo-stench and a frappuccino into the air. It spread around the parking lot like a wild fire and suddenly dispersed.

"You let the hobo go, too," Finny pointed out.

"Damn it!"

* * *

><p>"Hmm… what's another good joke…" Masaomi asked himself. Before him lay a piece of banana gum and a blank wrapper. He tapped a pen on his lips in thought as he stared at the blank strip of paper.<p>

"Hmm… maybe-" Suddenly, a puff of smoke cut off his thoughts. He gasped to find his breath while turning his head frantically to see if he could find the source of the smoke. From beyond his own coughing fit, he started to hear another set of coughing and mumbling from in front of his small bubble gum stand. He could just barely make out who it was, but couldn't be sure until the smoke cleared.

"Izaya?" Masaomi called out. "Izaya, is that you?"

"Of course it is. How'd you know?" Izaya slurred as he skipped up to the stand.

"I recognize your sleazy tone of voice."

"I suppose that figures," he agreed with a flop of his arms.

"Well… who's she?" Masaomi asked, pointing at the dark hobo that stood behind Izaya with an impatient look about her face.

"She's just a business partner, that's all."

"But, wait, isn't she that hobo that's been causing trouble around the stores?"

"Well, yeah, she is that too. Oh, I almost forgot," Izaya said, spinning around on one heel to face the hobo. "You're waiting for your payment, aren't you?"

She didn't say a word. She merely crossed her arms against her chest and began to tap her foot on the ground, an expectant look on her face.

"Okay, okay, no need to burn a hole through my head," he joked. He dug into one of the pockets on his eskimo jacket and came back with a wad of paper in his fist. The way he held it, you could barely see what it was, which played out to his advantage. "Here you go. I do believe that a most amusing human such as yourself will find a wise way to use this," he said as he slapped the wad of paper onto her gloved hand.

When she looked down at the paper, Masaomi began to gape upon seeing what Izaya had actually given her. Steeling his own boss' idea, Izaya had chosen to give her 3 one-hundred dollar Monopoly bills.

"Oh my god, Izaya! I can't believe you! Why would you do that to a hobo who has nothing? That is so cruel! You are unbelievable!"

As Masaomi continued to bitch at Izaya, who didn't really give a shit, Sunni looked down at the play money once again, shrugged and walked towards the vending machine that had been placed close by the stand. When Izaya decided to draw his attention away from Masaomi's guilt rant, he watched as Sunni drew out one of the 100 dollar bills, shoved it into the slot and pressed the button for a Mello Yello.

"There's no way that's gonna work!" Izaya called over to her.

As if on cue, the two suddenly heard the slam of the can tumble down to the machine flap. Casually, without any signs of surprise, she reached down, grabbed the can, and took a sip, sending a mocking glare at Izaya.

As the two employees gaped at this impossible scene, Sunni poofed up a big burlap sack with a big green money sign on the front. Exactly on cue, once again, the machine began to rattle and shake until it burst out an avalanche of dollar coins, quarters, nickels, dimes and pennies galore right into the burlap sack.

10, 20, 30, 40 dollars worth of coins! It just kept going and going until the sack was filled to the brim with 98 dollars worth of the coins. Casually, Sunni slung the sack over her shoulder, poofed a leash loop around her wrist, which held captive the Hitlar squirrel at the end, and skipped off into her own poof of teleportation smoke.

Gaping like dumb-founded rednecks, Izaya turned to Masaomi and said, "We just got dooped by a hobo and a squirrel…"

Masaomi was silent only for a moment longer before replying, "I wonder if I can get a soda like that…"


	5. Chapter Four

Chapter 4: The Tomato and the Norris; 

Part One: The Tomato

Late into the night, I slept peacefully, without a sound, dozing the day away so that I wouldn't have to face it again. Today was finally Halloween and, boy, did I have an interesting time. After the incident with the toy store, though it never lead to a lawsuit, we still had to actually let the Undertaker go ahead with his plans so that we wouldn't get any complaints. The haunted house, as enjoyable and frightening as it was, was sucking everybody else's profits and customers away. Needless to say, the last two weeks of the month didn't hold many kind gestures towards the Undertaker.

Along with this hardship, there was also the situation of the trick-or-treaters. Children, for some reason, will always find it to be a fine idea to dress up and come here to trick-or-treat for a while. Sadly, we always end up turning them down ever since the last time we tried to hand out candy to a group of kids. By the time we would have the bowls of candy all set up, it would be inevitable that L would have stolen it all, somehow, in the blink of an eye. As sad as it is to see their disappointed little faces when we say we have no sweets, at least this got us another step closer to keeping L from becoming a severe diabetic.

Along with that, we had the Irish Grim Reaper come to the mall today, which started up some offensive commentary from some of the customers. I was overjoyed by the fact that today was the day that we would get rid of that troublesome pest some would call a "dog", but my joy was quickly out the door. I was so overly happy when the man arrived that, when he came to talk to me, I accidentally blurted out, "So where's your mystical gardening tool?" He took great offence to this and immediately went on an entire Irish-accented rant about "It's not a gardening tool, lassie! It's a death scythe and I could darn well use it to spew your guts onto the floor while I sing a shanty!" He took the dog when he was finished a half an hour later, and when he left, I was just about to kick is Celtic ass down the road to the nearest gas station.

Now, as uneventful as I sum the day up to be, there was one thing that seemed to really top all of our minor troubles that we all tend to complain about. As opposed to the actual date of April 1st, for Sunni the hobo, Halloween was like her April Fools day. On this day, she wouldn't just strike like she normally would. No, she would wait carefully, even if it meant all day, for us to let our guards down before she struck. This year, as opposed to last year when she threw rubber spiders and green slime on the customers, she found the freakiest, most realistic mask off the face of the planet and ran around, chasing children and any other living thing that would utter a terrified shriek. It seriously took 7 of us to even try to get close to her. We had been really close to catching her today, but as usual, before we could catch her, she teleported away. Today, she decided to scare the shit out of some of the employees on her way out, too.

My day was tiring and strenuous, and when the stores were to close, I was too damn exhausted to even utter a single foul-mouthed sentence. I went to bed as soon as I could, that night, and was out cold before you could say "pie". As peaceful and well needed as my slumber was, I ended up waking up in the wee hours of the morning, the thin clouds outside hovering over the remaining full moon. I rubbed my eyes and adjusted to the darkness. When I looked to my nightstand, the red glare of my clock spelled out 3:06 and AM. With the fatigue still holding its grip of drowsy insanity on my mind, I struggled to comprehend the combination of the numbers and the letters. I quickly gave up and slammed my head back into by pillow with a cry, "What is this black magic?"

I knew it was still late at night and only hoped that I could just go right back to sleep, but there soon came a single thought that kept me from doing so. I flew back up to sit upright in my bed. I rubbed my forehead and suddenly remembered with a jolt, "Aw damn. I gotta go get more soda for the vending machines." Earlier today, before taking her leave, Sunni had made sure to clean out all of my vending machines, leaving me to go fill them up at the end of the day… yesterday. I had been too tired to care and had fallen asleep before I could finish my work.

I groaned as I forced myself to get out of bed. I figured this would be easy for the most part, but then I realized, this is the night shift. And what better way to get up in the middle of the night than to go out into the freezing cold to go confront the most annoying group of people I have ever employed in my life. Yup, always a good time.

* * *

><p>"Ah, and how are we this evening, my dear mademoiselle?" asked the blond prissy-boy in front of me as he offered up a pink rose.<p>

"Save it for your gay boyfriend, France," I grumbled at him. Pathetically, his rose wilted as a frown creased his face. "I'm just here to talk to the night shift soda guard. Just let me in."

He sighed and his rose wilted lower. "Oh, if you insist…"

"Thank you." I proceeded to the entrance but was stopped when he clapped his hand onto my forehead.

"But wait!" he gasped. "There is a catch!"

"Oh brother. What could it possibly be?" I snapped.

"If you wish to speak with the guard…" he paused to sprout a creepily serious smile. "You must find him first!"

I stood with a blank stare, my eyes beginning to twitch. I figured before I got here that I would have to go through some trouble to get my inventory, but it hadn't exactly crossed my mind that I would have to hunt down the soda until now.

Jostling my way past France, I pulled open the front door to the massive storage warehouse and began to stomp in, my fuzzy eskimo slippers puffing as I stepped. Magically appearing into my hands, I pulled out a British musket and plopped one of those tan rainforest hunting hats onto my head. I pulled out a fake monocle and placed it onto my eye. With this, I was fully prepared to go hunt down my target; Italy. I narrowed my eyes on to the distant shelves ahead and charged out into the maze, screaming in an exhilarated manor, "Tallyhoooooooooooo!"

* * *

><p>For a time that seemed to drag on for hours on end, I wandered through maze after maze of this warehouse that I should have known the layout for. Around me, I was surrounded by towering shelves, some stocked, others simply holding empty crates. Everywhere I turned, not a nation was in sight; only the inventory to keep me company. Soon, my mind forgot the meaning of walking and simply led me to dragging my feet on the cold concrete floor. My tranquilizing rifle slumped to the floor and dragged behind me with every exhausted step I took, leaving behind only the scraping noise of the metal barrel.<p>

My eyelids drooped and my arms slumped like I was a sloth on meth. I soon reached a state of mind where the endless rows of shelves were beginning to drive me to insanity. I walked down the empty passages, feeling I wouldn't be able to bare these quiet paths any longer… until there sounded a noise.

I perked my head up and listened around. I began to hear whispers, taps and scuttling noises from above my head. In a swift motion, I raised my rifle to the air and strained to find any sort of life form that I could aim at.

"Got you now, you Italian bastard," I sneered in a hushed tone. I quietly looked above my head into the rafters, swaying my rifle to where my sights hit.

"Damn! We've been caught! Run for it!" quietly cried a voice from the metal rafters. There were some more scuttles that sounded to be two pairs of shoes that quickly faded into the distance.

"What in God's name was that? Damn countries," I grumbled, sadly lowering my rifle back down. It was now quiet and solemn in these halls once again.

My head suddenly snapped back up again as the scuttles from before were replaced by a new sound; someone was stepping towards my direction. On the ground level, I heard slow, calm steps drawing near to where I stood. I quickly crouched down, my back pressed against the nearest shelf, and held up my rifle at my side, ready to shoot whoever had the guts to show themselves. The steps came closer and closer until a clean, white shoe immerged from behind the shelf. The shoe was accompanied by a man in a white and gold suit, standing with perfect stature and an emotionless face. All of these aspects added up to the one man in this warehouse known as Japan.

"Oh, good! It's just you," I gasped, sliding myself down to the floor as Japan drew his brown eyed gaze towards me.

"Um… would you mind lowering your gun? It's making me feel very uncomfortable," he asked in his thick accent that made it near impossible to decipher his Rs from his Ls.

"Right, sorry Japan," I sighed.

"There is no need for apology," he insisted with a crack of a smile. After a short pause, he asked, "I see you're quite lost too."

"What? How are you lost? You WORK in this place!" I scolded.

"This is true. I may work here, but I still require a map to get around," he admitted, lowering his head in a sign of embarrassment.

"Well, then where's your map?" I asked.

"Britain stole it."

I struggled to stifle a giggle, but it loudly came out as an offensive snort.

"It's not funny. I'm lost in this place without that map and I have no clue where Britain ran off. Do you have any idea where he is?"

I paused to consider this, but came back empty handed. I shrugged with a reply, "Sorry, but I haven't seen him at all since I've been lost in this place…"

"Oh… I see," he said with great disappointment.

"BUT!" I said as I held up my cocked rifle. "We can always go find him."

In one short second, he lifted up his head, his straight face turning to a twisted grin. "Sounds like it could be fun."

"Very. Oh, I hope you don't mind, but I need to hunt down Italy to get some more soda from the inventory."

"I see. Well then he should make things a lot easier for us to find Britain, too."

"How so?"

"Britain has been scheming with Southern Italy to take down Northern Italy behind our backs for quite some time now. And, since my map is gone, that must mean that they plan to strike tonight."

"Yeah, but how does that make it easier for the both of us?" I questioned.

"Because Italy's hiding place is obvious. As long as we know which direction they went, I'll be able to find a short cut."

"Um, okay then. Uh…" I paused to think before pointing to the north. "I heard a couple of people running around in the rafters a little while ago; that must have been them. They ran off that way."

"Good, then we shall go this way," he decided. Without a moment's waist, he clapped down onto my wrist and yanked me down a path heading east.

"Wait! I said they went NORTH!" I protested.

"Yes, but I'm taking a short cut."

I stopped my protesting, pulled free of his grip and brought up my speed to catch up to his pace. I never did say it aloud, in fear of Japan thinking I was a psycho, but in my mind, I was gleefully crying, "Off to Neverland!"

* * *

><p>For the entire time that we ran, Japan lead me east. Just straight down one path and then cutting through the next. It felt like a never ending maze of un-escapable twists and turns leading nowhere. After a while of looking at the outrageous numbers of shelves surrounding us, I began to wonder whether all of these boxes actually held my inventory or if just a fraction of them were mine and the rest held things belonging to the countries.<p>

"Damn countries. Stealing my storage space," I grumbled silently.

At about a quarter to 4:00, we had reached our destination. It was the middle of the entire storage area where there was a circular shaped clearing of the shelves. I recalled being here a few times before for mass meetings and such, but I never realized that this was where Italy kept the soda. Shelf after shelf after extremely shelf lined up to form the large circular area. In the middle of the clearing, a single lamp from above shone a beam of light to the empty center.

"That," Japan said, pointing towards where the beam of light was reflected. "That is where Russia usually stands on the day shift. Italy SHOULD be standing right there for the night shift…"

"But he's not here."

"Which does seem quite unusual."

"Well, France did say we had to FIND him first, so…"

"Maybe he's in one of those boxes on that shelf," he said, looking up at one of the shelves.

"Why do you suppose it's that specific shelf?"

"Because he left the lift by the shelf."

I looked back to the shelf to confirm this. Sure enough, there was the yellow lift sitting innocently in front of the shelf. The lift was still raised up and was at the level of a wooden box that was labeled in red letters, "Tomatoes!"

I slapped my forehead. "Of course he's in the tomato box! How could I have not seen that?" I mentally grumbled.

"Because your mind is feeble," Japan replied as he calmly walked towards the control panel to the lift.

"Holy fuck! Since when can Japan read minds?" I thought with a shiver. Japan never responded to that thought so I figured I was just being predictable. (Or was I?)

Never mind that, what we had to deal with now as the matter of setting the box on the ground floor without breaking it. Knowing exactly how to operate the lift, Japan brought it down to our level, helped me up, and brought it back up to the box, his face remaining emotionless the entire time.

When we reached the level of the box, the both of us carefully grabbed opposite sides of the box and slowly lowered it into the lift.

"These wooden boxes sure are heavier than the cardboard ones," Japan complained.

"True, but this box does seem lighter than it should be if Italy was inside."

"That is also true."

When we had gotten to the ground floor, we placed the heavy box right next to the beam of light to get a closer look at it. I had ended up letting Japan sit over by the lift, seeing that he was in dire need of a breather.

I circled the box and the beam of light, my finger tapping my chin as I pondered whether the two were connected. After a while, I had become extremely aggravated with my motion of circling like a vulture only to come back with no results. Though we had gotten this far, Japan still hadn't found his map and I still hadn't found Italy, whom I had woken up in the middle of the night to find. Ticked off out of my mind, I paused with my circling, turned to face the box and snarled loud enough to startle Japan, "Damn you, Italy! Give me my damn soda!" I felt my anger surge through my body and, as if I was just gathering the energy for the ultimate limit-break, I twirled in the air and executed a perfect roundhouse kick. My foot made a violent crash into the wooden box, sending it rapidly sliding into the light of the ceiling lamp. It sped up with great force until it abruptly stopped right at the center of the light.

Echoing through the entire warehouse, Japan and I began a wide-eyed gape as we heard a sudden click, like the gears of a large clock tower snapping into place at midnight. There was a short silence, and soon, the click was followed by a loud whirring noise as the lid of the box began to rattle. My utter shock increased with the shaking box until, finally, the lid blasted off the box like a rocket ship to the moon. The two of us watched as the lid soared off into the distance, flying out of sight in a matter of seconds.

I continued to gape while, Japan, on the other hand, was just about ready to pass out where he sat. I wondered why Japan wore the horrified face that he did until, out of the blue, the ground began to rumble. I heard something that sounded like it was under the box slam open. My spine tingled, my utter being soon regretting what we had done. I felt that the world may have been coming to an end before the rumbling abruptly stopped.

I turned my head to see if Japan was okay, and he was for the time being… sorta. He had managed to hoist himself onto his feet but his skin was still pretty off-color. He slowly and shakily walked over to where I stood and gave me a look that signaled that I should try to see what was in the box. I nodded and cautiously reached towards the box. Though, there really was no need for me to even look inside, for the contents began to fumble around like it was struggling to get out.

I stumbled backwards and bumped into Japan who let out a startled gasp. The room became silent once again for a mere moment as we both stared at the box and hoped that it was all over… it wasn't.

Suddenly, Japan and I were sent flying onto our asses as the figure of a joyful man lunged out of the box. But this wasn't just a man. No, this person would be better described as a child trapped in the body of a man who can't drive and is usually drunk. Yes, the man who shot out of the box was none other than Italy.

"Bravo! You found me!" Italy cried with a beaming smile.

"Wha- how- you weren't in the box before! How did you-" I started to stutter.

"There's a chamber under the lamp light. The bottom of the box opens, too. I still can't believe it took you so long to find me."

Yanking me out of his way, Japan stepped forward to look Italy face-to-face and, with a straight, yet aggravated face, he bitch slapped Italy square across the cheek. Italy screamed like a small 8 year old and, rubbing his face, asked in a saddened tone, "What did you do that for?"

"You nearly gave me a heart attack!" Japan sternly replied.

"Well, it's not my fault that you can't count!" Italy defensively replied.

"Wait… what does that have to do with anything?" I questioned.

"Nothing. I said the same thing to America today and I wanted to see if you would react like he did," he replied, regaining his regular smile.

"What did he do?" Japan asked.

"He fell on the floor and kept on saying that he could count and that I was lying. It was pretty funny."

"Yeah, yeah, and that would turn out to be a fabulous story for the break room. Now that we've found you, may I PLEASE get my soda?" I pleaded.

"Sure! No problem!" Italy said as he climbed out of the empty tomato box. "Let's go to the vault. Russia and I are the only ones with the keys to it, so it sure it lucky that you found me."

"Agreed," Japan said.

Suddenly, as we walked, from behind us there was a loud crash followed by quiet cheering from above our heads. I looked up to find Italy's brother, Romano, and England up in the rafters. From what I gathered, they figured they had just killed Italy with whatever weapon they had just dropped.

"Heya, guys!" Italy cheerfully called up into the rafters, not knowing that the two thought that he was a pile of blood and guts.

"Damn it! You stupid, garlic breathing loser!" Romano angrily cried.

"Why weren't you in the box, you damned wanker?" Britain snarled down.

"Was I supposed to be in the box?" Italy asked.

"Wankah!"

"You!" I called up to them. "Get your sorry asses down here!"

"Oh, alright," England sighed before falling to the ground floor, Romano following right behind.

"What the hell was that about?" I asked the two, a confused look on my face.

"Listen, I'm quite aware of what you're thinking right now, but we weren't trying to kill him. We just wanted to make him shut up for a while," England tried to explain.

"Oh, yeah, I'm buyin' that… when pigs fly over the Canadian border!"

"Whatever you say, hothead bitch," Romano grumbled without a hint of remorse for insulting his boss. "It's not like we'll ever be able to get away with it now that you've all found us out."

"You better believe it," I warned.

"Oh, and Britain, I need my map back," Japan asked, holding out an expectant hand.

"And who says I was the one who took it?" he stubbornly asked.

"I saw you steel it from my room."

"Bloody hell," he grumbled as he dug out the folded paper from one of his breast pockets. "Here!"

"Arigato."

"Pfft!" Romano scoffed.

"Say, Romano. What did you drop on my tomato box?" Italy asked.

"… Another tomato box."

"Did you put anything in the box?"

"Yeah…"

"Well, what was in it?"

"… Tomato shaped paper weights."

"…. No way! I want some!" Italy cried, his hands joyfully shooting up into the air. Without a moment to waist, he ran towards the pile of rubble from the boxes and sifted through. Like a small child, he took a seat on the floor and picked through the pile to see which of the silver paper weights he wanted (even though every last one of them was the same.)

"Hey, this one doesn't look like a paper weight," Italy said, pausing his search it pull out what he had spotted.

"What doesn't?" I asked as I walked over to him to see what he had found.

"This one," he said, holding up the object to where I was leaning over his shoulder.

It wasn't like this item was too different from the other paper weights. It was still the shape of a tomato like the rest of them. Actually, this one would probably be exactly like the others. That is, if it hadn't been made out of solid gold! Yeah, you heard me right; it was a solid gold tomato.

I couldn't help but gape at the glistening wonder of this stunning object… that didn't belong to me or my property. Realizing this sent a downpour of acid rain on my own parade. I sadly turned to the others and asked in a louder tone, pointing a finger at the small collection of nations, "You! Does this," I held out the tomato I had taken from Italy's hand. "belong to any of you?"

"I don't believe so."

"Nope!"

"It's not mine."

I sighed. "Well then I guess it's mine… until I find the owner."

"Wait!" Romano protested. "Why give it back to the owner when you can sell it for some serious money?"

"Because I'm a good person, damn it!"

"Pfft! Whatever, I'll just steal some diamonds from Canada."

"Oh, like any of us give a damn about your debt," I grumbled under my breath.

I shoved the tomato into my pocket and pulled up my arm to check the watch that had somehow appeared onto my wrist. It read 5:36. "Dang it! I wanted to actually sleep tonight!" I sulked.

"So sleep," England suggested with his arms crossed over his chest.

"Believe me, I'd love to, but I have too much to get done… such as getting my soda," I pointed out before shooting a furious glare at Italy.

"… Oh! Right! Follow me. I'll get you your drinks in a sec," he said, standing up and ushering me forward.

With the heavy tomato-like thing in my pocket, I followed Italy down the hall as he skipped merrily in the lead.

* * *

><p>After a long night, I finally got my soda and was relieved to be able to leave the warehouse after my long search. With the trolley of soda boxes in hand, I wheeled it over to every single vending machine and began with one of the boring tasks of my job. For a long while, I now had to complete the task of clicking every last soda into their rightful places, making sure nothing was put out of place.<p>

Distracted by my work, I hardly noticed it when one of my employees had come up and decided to loom over me without a sound. Just as I had clicked the last soda into the third machine, the man spoke up. "What kind of soda is that?"

"Whatever kind Italy gave me," I simply replied. "And who am I speaking to?"

"Why, it's me, of course," he joked.

I grinned. "'Me' who?"

"Hm… I'm gonna make you guess."

"Oh, a challenge! Um, I dunno… are you Britney Spears?"

"What?" he gasped.

"I'm joking! I know it's you, Lelouch," I said with a playful grin. I paused my work to turn around and politely face him.

"Okay, good," he sighed, rubbing the back of his head with an embarrassed look. "For a moment, I thought you were serious."

"Haha! Fail!" I laughed. "So what are you doing up this early?"

"Oh, Rolo got into the store last night and he woke me up, so I decided to clean up the paper and kick him out while I had the time."

"Well that sounds like a great waste of time."

"Honestly, it really was," he replied. "So what are you doing up this early?"

"Well, to make it short and sweet, I woke up at 3 and couldn't go back to sleep, so I decided to refill the soda machines."

"Uhuh."

"I went to the warehouse and France said I had to find Italy if I wanted the soda. I ended up going on a two hour hunt for him! When I finally did find him, Romano and England launched a failed attack on Italy. I had to scold them, then I had to clean up, then I had to get the soda, and now I'm here."

"Oho, doesn't that sound fun," he said sarcastically.

"I know, right?"

"Well, I just came here to give you this. I found it in Rolo's pile of papers and I figured you would get some use out of it," he said as he handed me a flyer.

Strangely ironic, the flyer was exactly what I would have needed that day. It read,

'Missing golden tomato. It's a tomato, and it's gold. Please respond if tomato is found.'

No return address, no phone number, just the message. I raised an eye brow at the flyer. "Oh, that's LAF-ly," I mocked.

"Heh, yeah, I found it strange too. But I figured, since you've already seen the strangest of the strange in the past, you'd be able to get something out of it."

"….Uh, yeah, what I get out of this is that the guy who made this is pretty damn stupid."

"What? Why do you say that?"

"Cuz he didn't write down a number to reply to," I pointed out, taking a double take of the flyer again.

"I guess that it pretty stupid."

"Yah think?"

"Hey, I gotta get back to the store before Suzaku wakes up."

"Aw, you gonna go make your boyfriend breakfast? Dat's so shweet!~" I cooed.

"Wh- What? No!"

"I'm kidding! Gain a sense of humor, for god's sake!"

"Oh… sorry," he said as he head drooped.

"Now, this is what I meant! Humor! Now get outta here, alright?" I playfully said.

"Alright. See you later, boss," he said before trotting off, waving back to me as he left.

I slammed and locked the door to the vending machine and sighed. "At least now I know someone is looking for the tomato, but who the hell is it who owns such a thing?" I wondered. Suddenly, it hit me. I looked back at the flyer and re-read the part that said, 'Please respond if tomato is found.' I slapped my forehead. "Of course! It's so simple!"

Instantly, I pulled myself off the spot where I had been kneeling, walked into the middle of the parking lot, and took in the silence. It was so peaceful, so calm, so quiet. It truly was a wonderful, yet quite vulnerable silence that could be broken at any time by anything or anyone. I took that opportunity of breaking the silence. I looked back at the flyer and looked back at the instructions for a third time. I soon had made my decision; phone number or not, I was going to do what was instructed in the way that I figured would be the most effective.

I prepped myself for some sort of earth quake or some comet to crash down on my head, craned my head back and screamed loud enough for even the heavens to hear, "I have responded!" The noise created by my scream echoed all around as the sound waves bounced off the walls and reverberated around the mall.

Due to the tradgety of cause and effect, from all around me, I could hear the sounds of voices that could have never been my own. Windows from the top floors of the stores cracked open and the heads of my pissed employees poked out to bitch at me for screaming at such an early time.

"What the hell, Dag'? We were trying to sleep!" Hikaru called down.

"Yeah, what the heck were you screaming for?" Kaoru joined in.

"Cm'on, Dagas! What, you don't want us to sleep now?" Cloud called down.

"Really? REALLY?" Miharu angrily called down. "Yoite was having a hard enough time sleeping as-is and now you wake everyone up with this. What were you thinking?"

From behind Miharu, I could see Yoite approaching the window with blood shot eyes and a pissed look on his face. He glared at me with pure hatred, lifting his pointer finger up and aiming it at my face.

"Oh, Yoite, please don't do that! I'm sorry, okay!" I desperately pleaded.

"'Sorry' doesn't cure insomnia," he said. From where he stood, I saw a wave of energy fly towards me as his hand flinched back. From his finger to my forehead, the wave of soul energy flew at me and struck my forehead point blank like an invisible bullet, causing me to fly back 3 feet and fall on my ass. With a thin trail of blood trickling down my face, I bunched my hand into a fist, shook it at Yoite's window and called up to him as if I was an immature 6 year old, "Jerk!" he simply waved his hand back to me in a "whatever" motion.

To add to this wonderful moment, from behind, I felt a finger tap down on my shoulder. I immediately turned around and screamed, "What?" at Russia who stood behind me, his usual innocently creepy face on.

"Oh, sorry. I came at bad time, da?"

"Just say what you wanted to say!"

"Italy wanted me to tell you that we're out of pasta."

"Grrrrr… DAMN YOU ALL!"

* * *

><p>As strange as the morning started out, nothing unusual really happened for the rest of the day. I ended up being as tired and as cranky as the rest of the employees that day. The fact that I never got a response from the tomato guy didn't help my mood out all that much either.<p>

The day paged out to be quite normal and depressing and, for everybody here, it seemed like all the coffee in the universe couldn't wake anyone up. As an annoying little Indian chick once said, this truly was an inauspicious day.

Unfortunately, for me and me alone, my depressed days and mood stuck around for the next 3 days. 3 days I waited for a response from the tomato guy and, by the third day, I had already given up. Though Lelouch insisted that I kept waiting, I refused to listen.

On the 4th day, I woke up at about 7:08. Being that I had given up on my hunt, I wasn't as depressed as the 3 days before. I was still having a hard time getting past it though, but at least I was starting to feel better about it.

While wearing a pair of pj's that looked like they would be most appropriate for a 50 year old woman in the middle of a midlife crisis, I walked silently out of my home. My feet dragged close behind me and my lungs billowed out yawn after yawn after yawn. Trudging out to the edge of the concrete overhang, I pulled my hand over my eyes to look out into the distance and watch the sun rise. I let a sweet smile escape my lips as I took in the beauty of suck a glorious happening. True, it was an everyday thing that only could be cried over by a fag, but if you really take it in, it makes you appreciate the life you've been given.

Sadly, my happy moment was abruptly ended at the sight of a shadow blocking my view. I squinted in an attempt to see what exactly was on the roof that had blocked the sun. soon, the object swooped off the roof and headed to my direction. With the back of his tail coat effortlessly fluttering close behind and his perfect posture keeping him upright on the landing, I knew in an instant that it was Sebastian.

As a change of pace, Sebastian approached me with a normal expression instead of his usual creeper smile. In his hand, he delicately grasped what seemed to be a message that had been written on gold paper. Referring to me as though I had suddenly become his "young lord", he said in his butler monotone, "Young master. I believe you have received a letter."

"What, that's for me?" I asked in a confused tone.

"I do believe so. There seems to be no return address or specific sender, unfortunately. However, it does bear your name on the envelope."

"Wait, lemme see that!" I ordered as I snatched the letter out of Sebastian's hand.

Looking down at the letter, I found that my name had been perfectly printed on the front of the letter in what seemed to be a silver Crayola crayon. I found this to be quite strange, not to mention improper, but I opened the envelope anyway. On the inside where the true message lay, I found the message had been perfectly engraved into the golden paper with pure silver and the edges had been embroidered with glistening golden strips that formed perfect swirls at the corners.

While struggling to prevent blindness from the sheen coming off of the glorious wonder of a note, I carefully read the bold silver letters that stated,

'I see you have found my prized object. Bravo to you, my good sir! Now that you have found it, I would like to ask a favor of you. I have been stranded in a sandy, Egypt-like place for weeks and I can't seem to find my way out. All I ask of you is to find me and bring the tomato to my current location. Nothing more shall be needed of you. Soon after you read this letter, a map of my location should be sent to you. Good luck, and watch out for the scorpions.

Signed, God

PS, I'm not god!'

After lowering the extremely heavy letter, I started to rub my head, my mind still trying to comprehend what I had just read.

"Oh, there are SO many flaws in this guy's logic," I said out loud as I rubbed the bridge of my nose.

"Like what, might I ask?" Sebastian asked.

"He says he's trapped in some sort of sandy plane and yet he had the time to make a letter that could be worth five-grand!" I said, handing the letter over to him.

"Flawed indeed," he scoffed with an amused smile.

"And not only that, but he says he'll be sending over a map of his location… and yet he has no clue where he is."

He chuckled with a silly grin. "Oh my. This man sure does seem to be missing a screw."

"I agree," I said with an irritated sigh. Suddenly, a strange gust of wind blew towards our direction and slammed a slab of aged paper right onto my confused face. After prying the paper off, I observed it and found it to be the predicted map. I took a good look and found that it just seemed to show miles upon miles of sand dunes. On the other side, I read a message that said,

'Use this map wisely, young padawan. It shall prove to be useful… if you know how to use it!

~ Sand dune hobo'

Without thinking about anything else that was said on this strange map, I remarked as I rubbed the back of my head, "Damn, this guy's gotta pick a name!"

* * *

><p>Later that morning, as the hordes of early-bird customers began to pile up at the entrance to the parking lot, I found no trouble in ignoring the shouts and impatient wines of the shoppers as I rounded up my employees into a straight line. Automatically, the employees organized themselves in the order of their stores, waiting for me to send out an important announcement or something else of that nature. Of course, a simple announcement wasn't precisely the case.<p>

While standing before my sleepy workers, I began to pace from end to end of the perfect line, observing every last person as I passed by. Walking by, I could almost feel the people behind me breathe a sigh of relief, feeling they had dodged a major bullet if I hadn't stopped to look them straight in the eye. I paced back and forth down the line a couple times until I was positive that I had everybody's attention. When I was done, I walked back to my place, standing right at the front in the middle of the line so that I could be seen by all.

I cleared my throat and raised my voice to a good volume, announcing to the drowsy men standing before me, "I have received a letter today from the man who lays claim to the tomato. He says he wants me to come find him. Though, I can't exactly go alone, being the fact that he is in the middle of a desert. So, I need to bring with me some reliable people who can handle a hunt that could possibly go on for weeks to find a man that may not exist… so who wants to volunteer? Anyone?"

Instantly, I saw at least 7 hands skyrocket into the air. Seconds behind, I noticed 4 more hands slowly raise up, as if they were slightly unsure of their decision. I looked around a bit to view my choices and silently picked out who would be a help in this mission.

Out of all of my men who wanted to go, I ended up plucking out a group which, though reliable, was a pretty foolish gang. With me, I decided to bring America, Italy, England, Cloud, and Zack. Why choose these people over all of my other, smarter choices? Simple! England was an expert at reading maps, America has an internal compass, Zack and Cloud are both a good defense and offence (remember, the guy said to watch out for the scorpions, and I just wanna be prepared for however big these poisonous bugs are) and Italy is a master a creating and finding secret hiding places. As an added bonus, America and Italy somehow always have an unlimited stash of food on them, so there's no chance of starvation! Everything works out… well, not in the eyes of some.

"Hey! I have a problem with this!" Germany beckoned to me.

"What's that?" I asked.

"I am more capable of taking this on than they are! I am a Fuehrer, for Gott's sake! Why on earth would you choose them over me?"

"Because I'm putting YOU," *jabs him in the chest* "in charge of the mall! There, you happy now, Mr. Fuehrer?"

"Uh, I didn't know that-"

"Yeah, now WHO was complaining just now? Cuz I could have sworn that it was a tight-ass, ungrateful, German PRICK!"

From the end of the line, I heard Honey's words that broke the tense silence. "Ooooooooo! Germany got yeeeeeelled aaaaaat!" An array of childish snickers from half of the employees soon followed.

"M-my apologies," Germany stuttered with a burning face.

"Apology accepted," I said to him. He straightened up his posture again and I left him to carry on.

"Wait!" he called out again, causing my feet to angrily skid on the blacktop.

"What now?" I snarled at him.

"I can't possibly manage this huge place on my own. It's too much for one person to handle."

Now, what I wanted to do was yell at him "welcome to my world" and slap him across the head with a dull stick, but I was unable to do so due to the fact that I didn't have a stick. Oh, what a pity! Instead, I sighed and said to him, "Of course it is! And that is why you will be co-managing with Kyoya and Japan."

"Is that so?" Kyoya rhetorically asked as he pushed up his glasses with a pen.

Much like a cadet accepting a mission in the middle of war-fare, Japan straightened his back up and said to me, arms at his sides, "Hai, I accept your challenge."

"Very good, soldier!" I called out to him.

"Oh! Oh, oh, OH!" Zack called out to me, his arm stretched high in the air.

"Yes, Zack?" I sighed.

"When do we get to leave, huh?" he asked with a little spring up in the air.

"As soon as you are all packed. So if you're that eager to leave, then get packin'!"

"Woo hoo! Let's go!" Zack cheered before speeding off to his room. Close behind, Cloud picked up his pace to follow his dear friend.

"Imma gonna go pack lots of pasta!" Italy cried.

"Alright! This is gonna be off dah hook! Right, Britain?" America exclaimed as he slapped his hand onto England's shoulder.

"Oh, good Lord, strike me down now."

* * *

><p>"Ten-hut! I'm taking roll call! Zack?" I called out.<p>

"Here."

"Cloud!"

"Here."

"Italy!"

"Si, I'm here, boss!"

"England!"

"Sadly…"

"And America!"

"H-here?" said a timid voice.

"Okay, then that means we- wait just a minute!" I called out to stop myself from making a huge mistake. I stomped up to the guy claiming to be America, got right up in his face and witnessed the fear and guilt emanating off his facial expression.

"Mhmm…" I murmured to make him nervous. For a while, I circled and surveyed his posture and other features. His glasses and hair kinda looked like America's. So did his hiking clothes and height. Though, there was one thing that seemed a little off; his sprig.

America had this specific sprig of hair on his head that stuck out a certain way right on his part. This person's sprig looked a lot like America's, though I soon found that it was completely held up by what looked to be glue. From his hair, I turned my attention to his bag, which seemed too odd to be America's. It looked pretty normal to the naked eye, but the one thing that made it stand out; it was breathing.

I suddenly realized who this man really was. I pulled my finger up to his head and flicked the sprig which unraveled it's self into a long curl that waved down the left side of his head. I stepped behind him and unzipped the sack. I looked down inside and softly called, "Oh, Mr. Kumajiro!"

From the backpack came an adorable, fuzzy, cream colored bear that deeply resembled the bear on the Snuggle fabric softener bottle. It looked up at me, hindering an adorably aimless look in its beady black eyes. With one look at the back of "America's" head, the fuzzy bear asked in a sweet, innocent voice, "Who're you?"

Instantly, the blonde responded in an irritated, mousy tone, "I'm Canada! Why don't you know that yet?" Without hesitation, Canada slapped his hands over his mouth, realizing his mistake.

"Busted!" America shouted from behind him.

"Why'd you do it, man?" I asked in a hippie voice.

"I wanted to test you to see if you really could tell me an America apart…"

"Well I almost couldn't tell the difference. The sprig was pretty convincing," I commended him.

"I didn't realize I was that good at disguises," he admitted.

"Then again, I don't think I could have really told the difference if you didn't have Mr. Kumajiro with you, soooo…"

"Oh darn!"

"Hey, hey! That just means that you should always have him with you, bro! Then people won't mistake you for me."

"I guess that would help a little."

"That's the spirit!" America encouraged him as he gripped Canada around his arm. "Now why don't you take this cup of ice cream and go watch some anime, okay?" he said, handing him a pint of vanilla ice cream.

"Well that sounds fun. Thanks, America!" Canada said as he skipped off into the distance with his cup of ice cream and Kumajiro asleep in his bag.

"I can't believe this…" I said as I stared angrily at America.

"Can't believe what?" England asked.

"America went all Oprah on us and totally stole my thunder!"

"Well it's not like he can help it. After all, he is the 'hero'."

"Yeah, in his dreams."

"Heh, well put."

"Mhmm. Okay fellahs, let's get moving."

"Where exactly are we 'moving' to? I mean, where are we going to find a desert in Chicago?" Cloud asked.

"And who says our guy is in Chicago? Maybe he's in Egypt, for all we know," I added on.

"And who says he's there?" Zack said.

"Exactly! So that means that we need to think outside of the box!" I exclaimed.

"Actually, it would be more appropriate to think INSIDE a box," England said.

"Cut the British metaphoric crud and get to the point," America rudely urged.

"What I was trying to get at is simple. I believe there is a movie shoot just outside of Chicago."

"So? What's that got to do with anything?" Zack asked.

"I was getting to it!" England barked. "For this movie shoot, I've heard that they created what seems to be somewhat of a mini-Hollywood. I've been informed that one of the storage rooms is supposedly an endless desert. I hardly doubt it's the truth, but it's worth bringing up."

"Yeah, I think I heard some rumors about that around town last week. It's getting to be kind of a big deal," Cloud added.

"That is so weird! Why would they have something like that on a movie site?" I questioned.

The two of them shrugged.

"Well, at least now we know where to start looking," I sighed.

"Yeah, but if it's a movie shoot, won't there be, like, heavy security?" America asked while quizzically scratching his cheek.

After thinking for a little bit, I shrugged and casually said, "Eh, we can make it up as we go."


	6. Chapter Five

Chapter 5: The Tomato and the Norris

Part 2: The Norris

It was settled; the first place we would check would be mini-Hollywood. Since the tourist attraction was just outside of Chicago and our mall was close to the border of the city, we found no need to grab a taxi there. Instead, we walked all the whole way. It was a short walk, but, judging by the looks that were being shot at us by the innocent bystanders, we must have looked like a walking freak show. Then again, it was the beginning of November and we were a large group of weird looking people dressed like safari tour guides. Realizing this, I could clearly understand why we seemed so strange to the normal city folk.

When we finally reached our destination, we soon realized what sort of beast we were about to face. Crowds of people and squealing fan-girls were being tightly held back by a wall of burly looking security guards whose only goal was to keep people out.

"Those bloody mongrels!" England snarled once we had all gotten a good look at the guarded gate.

"What? What is it?" I asked him.

"Those are MY soldiers! MINE! Since when does the bloody American film production system have the right to steal my own soldiers? This is an outrage!"

I struggled to hike myself over someone's shoulders to get a better look at the guards. As startled as the dude who I climbed on top of was, I was able to hold on to him for just the right amount of time to get a good look. Sure enough, right in front of the entrance, was a large, tight wall of England's soldiers.

They were the typical statue like soldiers in the red jackets that you would normally see standing in front of some large British house or something of that matter. Every last one of them made themselves out to look just a bit taller by wearing their funky, fuzzy black hats that could have possibly been taller than them. Every single one stood with the same stance; perfectly still with their posture keeping them as flat as boards. Their ape-like overbites, caused by the straps on their hats, jutted out of their faces, adding on to the intimidating looks that they all wore.

"Whoa… those are some mean lookin' dudes," America gawked.

"So, what are we gonna do? Should we just charge in and see if they move?" Zack suggested.

"Absolutely not! That would be a bloody suicide mission!" Britain sternly contradicted.

"Well then why don't we ask them really nice to move and hope they don't hurt us? They might let us in, right?" Italy timidly asked while pathetically slumped on the ground.

"… It couldn't hurt to try," Cloud agreed with a shrug.

"Hmmm… if we were to word it a certain way, we may actually get past," England agreed while tapping his finger to his chin.

"You serious, man?" Zack asked.

"Of course I am! No matter what they have been ordered to do, I'm still the United Kingdom! All I have to do is tell them to step aside and they shall do so!"

"Yeah, not if they see pasta-boy here," America pointed out with his finger pointing down at Italy.

"Why's that?" Cloud asked.

"He's the only one of us that doesn't look or sound either American or British," Zack clarified.

"Oh, I see."

"In that case… Zack! You're the strongest out of all of us. Put Italy in your bag," I ordered.

"If you say so…" he shrugged before Italy willingly wriggled into the large bag and allowed Zack to zip it up. "Now what?"

"Now put the bag on and let's get walking."

"Ah, Italian smuggling. Well played," England commended.

"What, this actually works in your country?" I asked.

"Of course. How else are they supposed to get across the border without sprinting away from the first soldier they see? Italians pull off that kind of crap in every country… Well, accept for America," he replied before shooting a disgusted look towards America.

"Yeah, they can come to my place whenever they feel like! I'm the land of the free, yo!" he proudly proclaimed.

"Aha, that's lovely…" England sarcastically chuckled before angrily shoving a fan-girl to the ground.

Once we had managed to get through the squealing and shouting layers of crazed fans, England struggled his way right up to the first soldier he could get to, brushed the kicked up dust off his outfit and politely greeted the soldier, knowing precisely who the man was. "Ah, Philip! I see you really did travel to the western states! Did you find a nice flat?" The soldier remained silent. "Okay then. Pardon me for asking such a ridiculous request of you, but my four comrades and I have been sent by the director of this motion picture to bring in some supplies. He said that one of the soldiers would belong to my country and, well, I supposed that was quite an understatement," he dryly chuckled. The soldier refused to move a single muscle. "Anyhow, by the orders of the director and the glorious Great Britain, I command you and your men to let us through!"

Without even a mere glance down to look at England's short stature, Philip, along with the rest of his men, took one large step to the side, leaving a small gap for all of us to squeeze past. It was an easy victory, as opposed to our previous thoughts, but we had a new war behind that gate that we would have to face; we still had to find the tomato guy.

"Okay, kid," Zack said as he unzipped the bag. "We're in."

"Oh, good! That bag was getting really hot!" Italy sighed with a sweaty, goofy grin.

"Alright people! Let's cut the chit-chat and go find that shed! We're burnin' moon light!" I said in a pirate like voice.

"Uh… dude, it's daytime! Get your day and night straight, brah," America scoffed.

"I'm fully aware that it's day time! I just felt like saying that since we're on a quest. It made me feel like a pirate for a second there."

"Why's that?"

"Hell if I know!" I shrugged.

"Did one of you say pirates?" asked a man behind us.

"Yeah, but I'm done acting like a pirate now," I said, refusing to turn around.

"Oh, well alright, then," he said.

Without turning to face the man, I asked, "Hey, before you go, by any chance do you know where we could find and enchanted storage block around here?"

"Jungle, tundra, or desert?"

"Desert."

"Well if you're looking for that one than you're looking for storage block six. You should find it a short while down the road, straight ahead," the man replied.

"Awesome! Thanks for the help!" I happily replied as I turned around to politely shake his hand. When I grabbed his hand, I felt the itch of his navy blue, fingerless, wool knitted glove rubbing on my bare palm.

"My pleasure, little miss," the man said with a nice smile. "You take care, now."

"Yeah, you too," I replied, pulling our hands out of each other's grips.

I turned back round to the rest of my possy as I pulled out the map out of my bag. I looked up to my comrades after I unfolded the map to find them all gaping at me like brain-dead monkeys.

"What?" I questioned.

"Dude, do you know who just shook your hand?" America asked with a hyper gleam in his eyes.

"No. I just thought it was a really nice guy with cool glasses and unique gloves… who was he?"

"Dagas, that was Johnny Depp!" Cloud said with a wide eyed stare.

"Whoa, seriously?" I gasped before turning back around to double check that it really was him. It was. I shook his hand. And to think, I could have stolen his glove when I had the chance! "No freaking way! How could I have not noticed that it was HIM?"

"Hah, how foolish of you!" England scoffed.

For a short while, I stood in one place, doing nothing but gaping at him as he walked off. Behind me, I could hear the others laughing hysterically at my expense. But, soon enough, I managed to snap back into my former state and, upon doing so, I remarked with a snarky grin, "Eh, my aunt met him once, too. Said he was a nice guy."

"Say whaaaaaaaat?" Italy chimed.

"Oh, and if you ever run into Mel Gibson, just remember, even PRIESTS think he's one fucked-up dude," I added while walking past the group, a prideful spring in my step.

"Oh, whatevz, man! Let's get to the shed and find the desert guy!" America said before running ahead, cocky as he is, and taking the lead of the group.

"Pfft! Typical American," England grumbled under his breath.

In no time at all, we had reached storage block six. It didn't seem like much of a storage block, let alone an enchanted one. In fact, it was too small to even contain a fourth of a small desert town. Pathetic, if you ask me

"Well this is a bit of a let-down," Zack said while tapping the blunt end of his massive sword on his shoulder.

"Yeah, no kidding," Cloud agreed while scratching the back of his head.

"Hey now, let's not give up yet! There could still be something behind that door!" I said in an attempt to lift some spirits.

"And what in the world could that possibly be? That bloody shed couldn't possibly even contain a small English war plane!" England complained.

"Aw, quit your bitchin', yah tea suckin' Brit'!" America rudely commented while locking his arm in a death grip around England's neck.

"Hey, Meri! You're choking England to death! I refuse to allow a second revolution here!" I sternly warned.

"What?" America asked with a bright smile. He obviously couldn't hear me over England's choking and hacking noises.

"You damned American! Release me!" England choked out, his throat rasping out every word he spoke.

"Alfred Jones!" I screamed at him, fully grasping his attention. "Drop. It. Now."

Instantly, he released his grasp on England's neck, causing England to plummet onto the ground, heaving and gasping for air the second he hit the asphalt.

"Alright, now, if we're all done bickering about it, why don't we at least try to open the door and see what's behind it. Alright?" I suggested.

"Yeah! Let's think happy thoughts about it! And hey, even if it's not magical, maybe we'll get lucky and find some pasta instead!" Italy cried with high hopes as he slammed open the metal door. As soon as the door was opened, a massive gust of sandy wind was blown into our faces, causing some of us to nearly go blind. As the winds began to get stronger, pounds of sand were swept carelessly through the air, enveloping us in a thickening layer of flying dunes. I could feel my heart begin to beat faster and a panicked feeling rising up in my stomach as my body was lifted off the ground by a growing vortex in the heart of the shed.

Suddenly, I heard a high-pitched cry and instantly knew that Italy had been the first victim of the vortex. Soon enough, Zack and Cloud were sucked in, followed close behind by England. The last to go would be me and America, and he didn't exactly want that to happen. I looked to the door frame and saw America clasping on for dear life. Fear drowned in his blue eyes as he held out a desperate hand in the hopes that at least the two of us would be safe from the vortex that had fallen upon the others. These hopes, unfortunately, weren't very smart hopes at all. I did grab on to his outstretched hand, but since he had a larger body weight than I, he was the sole reason why the two of us hadn't stood a chance of saving ourselves.

At last, we had all been sucked in with no means of clawing our way out. Once inside, I squinted and, through the sand, I saw the door slam shut behind us and click as the lock was turned. As if time had stopped, we flew through and endless gust of sand which carried us to unknown lands to the average human.

For a brief moment, I got used to the rhythmic tossing and turning I was enduring in the vortex. But, like I said, it was brief. Unexpectedly, I soon was slammed into an unusually hot surface, my whole body cracking upon the impact. After finally gaining back the feeling in my body, I slowly pulled up my head, praying the while that my neck wasn't about to snap in half. When I pulled it up, I immediately placed it right back down since the motion made my head spin.

As I allowed my head to lie on the warm, sandy floor, I began to look around and assess the damage that had been inflicted. There didn't seem to be any broken bones or bloodshed, that was certain. In one area, I saw Italy shaking sand out of his hair like a wet dog shakes water out of its' fur. In another area, I saw Zack whacking the side of his head to dislodge the sand that had been driven into his ear. In another place, I glanced over to see England carefully brushing the sand off of his expensive British exploration-wear before patting down his messy bed-head as if he was trying to make it look nice. I searched around some more and saw Cloud trying to get the sand out of his metal shoulder guards. And in the last place I looked, I spotted America puffing pounds of sand out of his shirt, cargo shorts, and even his back pack.

Sand, sand, and more sand; that was the only thing on us, in us and surrounding us. Realizing this, I worked up my strength and instantly sprang up to take a good look around me. We had, in fact, been sucked into a barren desert! As opposed to the grey, Chicago sky and slightly smoggy air, the sky here was a bright shade of blue dotted by a blazing sun, letting no cloud be in its boundary. The heat was so intense that you could see heat waves emanating off of the horizon, creating intense ripples out to the unknown distance. Looking about the surrounding area, I suddenly had a realization that sent chills down my spine to even think of it to be true.

"Shit, man, where's the door?" I frantically asked.

"Um, over there," Zack said as he pointed to the closed door. "Why are you suddenly freaking out about it?"

"Because I've watched Monsters Inc. too many times to not know what's going on here!" I called to him as I stormed towards the door. Even though I had clearly heard the door lock as we crashed in, I still wanted to see if it would open somehow. I reached for the lock, turned it open and slammed open the door. Nothing. There was no mini-Hollywood, no Johnny Depp, no guards, nothing! All that stood behind the door was the other half of the desert.

"Shit!" I scowled. In frustration, I circled the door and tried to find a way to open it to where we came. Nothing. Soon, I realized that the rules of Monsters Inc. entirely applied to this defiance of physics. We were on the other side of the door, possibly the other side of the world, and there was no way out unless somebody from the outside opened the door. At least, that's how it seemed.

"Alright guys, I don't want you to freak out about this," I timidly said to the others. "but we're stuck here." The entire group sucked in a sharp, simultaneous gasp. "BUT!" I reassured. "I believe there may be a way out. Obviously, this desert, and the door, are being controlled by an unknown force. All we have to do is finish what we came here for and the door will unlock. Easy-peasy."

"And what if your theory is flawed?" England questioned.

"That's highly unlikely," I replied. "But if my theory is flawed, then we'll probably be trapped here forever."

The entire group gaped at me like I had just openly said that I was going to lob off all of their heads within the next 5 minutes.

"Well, let's get going. The sooner we find the guy, the better," I cheerfully said as I began to march off. As much as they hated it, the group followed close behind me, feeling they were about to face impending doom.

* * *

><p>"I just can't! It's impossible!" America wined.<p>

"Oh, suck it up, you bloody wanker!" Britain grumbled with his arms tightly crossed over his chest.

"But I just can't! I swear, it'll kill me if I have to!" he protested.

"What'll be the point of it? I don't think it'll make a difference at all," Cloud objected.

"We'll go faster! I swear to God! Oh, please, bro; my OCD won't be able to handle it if we EVER have to go up hill!" he pleaded. To add emphasis to his plead, he dropped down on to his knees and clapped his hands together in a praying stance. And yes, this was all a big road block caused by America. What exactly was he doing to stop us? He refused to go uphill. Yep: that was it. We had stopped to roast in the burning rays of the sun, with little supply of water to spare, because this lazy wimp didn't want to put effort into going up a few little sand dunes.

I heavily sighed with my hands clenched at my sides. "Whatever, if you have some sort of OCD for it, then fine. We'll go downhill from now on. But you'd better be right about this," I warned in a dominating tone.

"Alright! Downward-ho!" he enthusiastically called out with his index finger held high in the air.

"Heh, that's what she said," Zack quietly whispered to Italy with a giggle or two. Italy joined in with a stifled laugh accompanied by an amused smile.

For the rest of the time that we walked that day, I lead the way with America closely looming behind me to make sure I wasn't leading anybody uphill. It was irritating on so many levels to have him whisper in my ear to avoid any hill up ahead, but the heat was making me too exhausted to interject. After a mere few hours of walking, the majority of us had become tired, sweaty, and pissed at each other for even so much as breathing the wrong way.

At one point, with all spirits and morale low, Italy suggested that we sing some songs. The rest of them groaned and covered their ears. I, on the other hand, gladly volunteered to join in. So, for the next half an hour, (or hour, or two hours, it was too hot to tell) Italy and I both sang several songs that were intended to be joyful, but the only joy it seemed to bring was to just us two. With a happy disposition, Italy and I marched side-by-side at the front of our group, singing our overly-happy show tunes and anthems.

" Draw a circle, that's the earth! Draw a circle, that's the earth! Draw a circle, that's the earth; I am Hetalia! " we both sang together in perfect harmony while skipping through the sand, our arms locked together with glee.

After singing the same song for the longest amount of time, you would assume at least one person would snap. That one person was England. He looked about ready to tear his hair out by the time we had reached the 8th replay of the song. His emerald eyes went ablaze with fury as his feet planted down to the ground, his hands forming into red fists with how hard he was clenching them. "For God's sake, you twits!" he burst out with massive rage. "You can't just draw a damned circle and call it 'the earth'! It has to have continents, oceans and people!"

With that single out lash, our train of tired men immediately stopped in its tracks. We all turned around to silently stare at England with astonishment in our eyes. For a while, we all stayed silent with sudden shock as England furiously panted to gain back the oxygen he had lost yelling at us for no good reason. Since the air around us was starting to get really awkward and sticky with sweat, I turned back around to start walking again before letting go the cocky remark, "Jeebers, England, who jizzed on your nightstand this morning?" No other remark that England could have said back could ever top that. Realizing this, England became silent and merely gaped at me with the others laughing at him as they walked past and continued to follow my lead.

Following that little incident, we all made a pact that if someone planned on singing at the top of their lungs it would have to be a song that everybody could stand listening to. With that, we all started out mumbling a couple national anthems which escalated to eventually laughing through the words when we moved on to the British national anthem. To get a few smiles going, I decided to imitate the Queen of England through standing up like there was a pole up my ass and keeping a straight face as I refused to sing along. Surprisingly, even England could find the sense of humor to laugh at this, most likely because he knew my imitation was dead on.

At one point, we moved on to some music, only known by me, that I felt would be good to introduce to the others. I began to teach them some Owl City and some My Chemical Romance which, with the genre diversity, everybody was pleased. To my astonishment, each and every one of us quickly joined in, as if by instinct, when Italy and I began to belt out Hakuna Matata. We sang out the entire song loud and proud, raising morale through the roof as the verses went by. And for that point in time, it really was our problem free philosophy that lead to no worries for the short rest of our day.

When the day had ended, the blazing sun set low, ushering in a cool, refreshing, silver ray of light from the nearly full moon. Everyone had become completely exhausted by the time the dark sky arrived, but, unfortunately, our work still wasn't done. We were aware that, as hot as the deserts were during the day, the sandy dunes turned brutally cold when the sun was gone. We had no choice in this; we absolutely had to set up camp before we died of the cold.

We all struggled to work together to dig a large pit in the sand for us to sleep in. It took a little over an hour, but it was worth it to finally have a safe place to set down our things. Within the barrier of the huge walls of the crater, we placed down our bags and crouched down to set up our mats and sleeping bags. Much like everybody else around me, I finally realized the true powers of aching bones as the sudden pop of my bending knees quickly brought me to the ground.

As quickly as we could without hurting ourselves any further, we all pulled out our pillows and heavy sleeping bags and prepared our own little personal bubbles in the crater. It was mostly a calm process, excluding the squabble between England and America. Once England had set up his things, he pulled a pillow case over his pillow which bore the British flag on it. This was hardly unusual being that he always used this pillow case, whether it be here or back at home. This wouldn't have been a problem at all… well, only if America wasn't the snarky narcissist that he is. Knowing that England was planning on using this pillow, America had already packed a monstrous sleeping bag with HIS flag on it and a matching flag pillow case that had "I'm the Hero!" printed on it in big yellow letters. Naturally, he had done this to out stage this rival country. This fired up England to no end. They began to loudly argue, shouting out death threats and suggestions of a full scale fight. This all ended the second I pulled out a large wok from under my own pillow. They secluded back to their own areas while I safely placed the wok back under my pillow for the next fight.

At the other end of the crater, I was forced to break some sad news to one of our troops. It pained me to say it, being that I knew he was just as exhausted as the rest of us, but we needed a "watch dog", so to speak. This was the exact reason why we had brought Zack and Cloud along. I hated the thought of saying this to him, but it had to be done.

"Aw, but I'm tired! I can't stand guard with my eyes rolling into the back of my head!" Zack drowsily protested while trying to stifle his incessant yawning.

"I know! I'm so sorry! But that's why I brought this," I apologized as I pulled a Monster Java out of my back pocket. "It's a little warm," I admitted, "but that shouldn't affect the taste."

He sadly sighed. "Alright, if I really have to stay watch…" he groaned as he thankfully grabbed the energy drink out of my hand.

"Don't worry. You only have to stay watch for a couple hours and then you can switch with Cloud. Can you hold up till then?"

He let out a loud, lion-like yawn. "I'll try my best."

"Awesome. Good luck," I encouraged him before clambering back into the crater.

"Yeah… g'night."

I crawled back into my warm sleeping bag and got nice and comfy, but once I did, America called over, "Yo, Dagas!"

"Yeah, what's up?" I whispered, using the last of the energy I could muster up.

"Did you give him an energy drink?"

"Mhmm, why?" I lightly mumbled as my limbs started to go blissfully numb.

"You shouldn't have done that! There's a new epidemic in my country called 'sleep high'."

"Hm… what's that?"

"It's when really tired people drink and energy drink, but it doesn't kick in until the person had dozed off so they start to sleep walk and when they do, they can do some crazy stuff cuz of the extra energy," he frantically warned with his arms flailing in the air.

I yawned, "That aint' gonna happen… you be cryin' over spilled milk…"

"Whatever. Just don't say I didn't warn yah."

"Ffffffff, yeah, whatever you say…" With that, I heard no other sound and my eyes allowed me to drift into a deep sleep.

* * *

><p>Late into the night, I felt my extremely chilled nose after being awoken by the cold, sandy wind bitch-slapping me in the face. Like a lot of the people on the earth, I couldn't get back to sleep with a cold nose. Instead, I lay on my back and looked up at the stars, a site I normally couldn't see in the big city. They all seemed so close and vividly bright in a place like this. What, without all of the roads or streetlights or obnoxious Chinese restaurants where the employees can't speak English. I started to quietly snarl to myself as I thought about all of those shitty restaurants that everybody insists on going to on the weekends. As I thought harder, I began to replay the voices of the bitches, who come to my mall every now and then, talking about their dinner plans. "Let's get Chinese food!"<p>

"Yeah! I want rice!"

"I want won-tons!"

"I like pandas!"

"Butter is a carb!"

I shoved my head under my pillow and silently screamed at my brain, "Shut up voices! I hate Chinese food! Yoite and Miharu's Japanese food is just as good! And butter is not a carb!"

Within a second, I discontinued my mental hissy fit and quickly shot my head upright at the sound of a strange noise that came from above me. It wasn't a noise like a scream, nor was it silent enough to be a quiet squeak. But a noise is a noise, and I clearly heard it from behind my muffled hysterics.

Quietly and cautiously, I crept out of my sleeping bag and slowly brought my eyes right above the edge of the crater. The way I was looking at it, the noise started to seem like a sudden figment of my imagination. That theory was very believable being that I have an very vivid imagination. Combined with childhood-based paranoia issues, I decided that the noise was just in my head.

With the thought of the noise already void in my head, I climbed back into my sleeping bag, closed my eyes and hoped for a better tomorrow. As my mind fell back into a zen-like state and my body began to go limp, I-

"AAAAAAAAH!" cried the noise from before. Whatever it was, I waited patiently for the noise to start to come after me in an attack. I hid silently for a while and, while being fully expectant of getting sliced in half or whacked on the head, I was baffled when I heard the sound of metal crushing down from the opposite end of the crater.

Out of curiosity, I raised my head to take a look and saw the strangest thing I have ever woken up to. Zack, unexpectedly asleep, was smashing the flat end of his heavy sword onto England's head. England was now fully awake and screaming cuss after cuss with what little voice he had left after the previous day's trek. On the other hand, Zack was screaming something that I could have sworn I had heard multiple times in the past while smacking away at England's skull like he was playing the ultimate game of whack-a-mole.

"Ah! Ah, spider! Spiiiiiiider!"

"Ow! Damn it- ah! Stop it this insta- ack! Bloody little fu- AAAH!"

"Off! Off, off!" Zack screamed between 3 more whacks. Suddenly, after that, he abruptly stopped and quickly scuttled to a dark corner in the crater. He immediately drifted back to a silent sleep like he had done no act of severe violence. After making sure Zack was asleep, I crawled up to England who was shaking with fear and possible internal bleeding as he lay on the sandy floor.

"Hey, England. You okay, bud?" I quietly asked as I reached out my hand to see if he was okay. Immediately, his hand shot out from under his blankets and swiftly caught hold of my approaching wrist. Glaring up at me with a pair of weak yet ferocious emerald eyes, he snarled at me, "Don't. Touch. Me." He released me wrist and, with that, I retracted my arm back and solemnly crawled back to my sleeping bag. In my little space, I kept a close eye on England until he seemed to have soundlessly fallen asleep. In turn, I contently fell asleep with a warm smile.

Though, the second my eyes shut, Zack instantly went at it again with the sword. I simply shook my head in disgust and left him to have at it all he liked. Thinking of the line of events so far, Zack would eventually stop and then drool a lot in his sleep. This was no crisis and I refused to make it one.

* * *

><p>"Ah-hahaha! What tried to mug you in <span>your<span> sleep? Hahaha!" America sarcastically cackled at England while pointing at the mountain of bumps atop his throbbing head.

"Nobody did! I was merely mistaken for… for… ah," he stuttered as his serious face started to turn bright red.

"'A' what? Spit it out, Brit'!" America demanded.

"Hmmm… wha? Spider?" Zack mumbled as he awoke from an interesting night's sleep.

England sighed and slapped his hand to his forehead with embarrassment. "What he said."

"Okay then…" America replied in confusion.

"Yeah…"

"Alright guys. Enough of that. The sun is rising and I'm sure we all want to try to beat some of the heat. Let's pack up and then we can get going. Mm'kay?" I announced as I laced an elastic string around my sleeping bag.

"Kay," they all replied in unison.

Minutes later, we were off once again. The sun had barely risen, and yet we were all sticky already due to the remaining sweat on our clothes from the previous day. An hour later, once the sun had fully reached well over the horizon, the heat had already become intense enough for a simple horsefly to drown in its own sweat.

Honestly, I managed to get to a point in the day where, with the simple blink of an eye, I could see the wardrobe top the winter wonderland of Narnia. Sadly, the second I would dare to blink again, the wardrobe would be gone and I would start to sulk until it came back.

Though, looking around me, I could see I wasn't the only one suffering from horrible insanity. In the back of the group, I found it difficult to stop myself from giggling at America and England who had agreed to trade hallucinations. So now, England was having a sophisticated conversation about economics and politics with the Tusken Raiders from Star Wars while America was having a heated argument with Flying Mint Bunny about what qualifies as fat.

Close by, from what I could tell, Cloud was begging an invisible chocobo for a ride to either Antarctica or the moon. I had absolutely no clue how a chocobo could take him all the way to the moon, let alone Antarctica, but what could I say that would disprove its abilities. I mean, come on! It's a chocobo! Who knows what kind of power it really has!

Zack, on the other hand, wasn't as humorous as the back-of-the-group-debates, but it was still easy to tell that he was starting to go crazy. From what I could tell, his brain had turned into a talking gitchy calculator with which Zack was struggling to crunch some restock numbers with. Sadly for him, the second he would press his mental equals button, the calculator would think he had pressed the clear button which would cause him to start to argue in sharp whispers with his brain.

At this point, their mental pain was my endless joy. Though, when I turned to find some joy in Italy's insanity, I started to get a little scared of both him and myself. What I saw was what seemed to be Italy having a fun chat with his long lost "Grandpa Rome." Not so scary, right? Wrong! What made this freakier than it ever needed to be was that I could see Rome, too!

I blinked a few times to see if it was just my imagination, but, to my surprise, the sleaze-bag was still there, chatting away with his grandson about girls, the summertime, and puppies. Seeing that the guy wouldn't stop talking and his fuzzy 5 o'clock shadow face was still there, I couldn't help but figure that someone would have to get rid of him before I started to chat with the Tuskens. And, of course, the person to get rid of him would have to be me.

While still walking, I casually bent down, picked up a mysteriously discarded large stick from the sandy ground, and walked on. The second I had a firm grasp on it, I held it up behind my shoulder like a baseball bat and turned my head to aim the end of the stick at the old man. With a loud battle-cry to top all others, I lunged forward and swung the stick right through Rome's head.

My eyes grew wide and I forced myself to blink twice at the now widely smiling man who Italy deeply resembled. "Great, now I know where Italy got his stupid grin from," I internally grumbled. Frustrated out of my mind, I swung at him again, and again, and again, but the stick would do nothing but pass right through Rome's head. By now, the others in my group, all accept for Italy, had ditched their imaginary buddies to cheer me on as I swung. Though, even with all my efforts, the old man was still there, smiling like a total goof, even after my arm could swing no more.

"I give… I give!" I cried behind my heavy panting and wheezing as my stick dropped to the ground.

"Ha, ha, ha!" the old man bellowed at my defeat. "You see, Italy? That's how you bring a man to his knees!"

"Oh, by turning see-through like you, grandpa? Okay, I'll try it!" Italy exclaimed before closing his eyes and making a constipated face. As he struggled to do as his grandfather had done, and unclear figure shot out of the sand like a bullet. He soared high into the air and stuck the landing like a first class ninja. Like so, he sped past and with a flash of air, I looked down and my stick was gone. The initial shock took hold of me for a while until I suddenly realized that I could actually get irritated over a mysterious figure snatching my stick.

After grabbing the stick, the figure lunged back into the air and stayed high in the sky for an extended period of time, blocking the sun from our eyes for what short time he was there. He soon landed back on the ground in another ninja-like pose, the hand with the stick in it stretched out like he was holding a battle sword. The man looked up, held the stick up high, and aimed it square at Italy's head. I was about to warn him, but before I could, the man had already lunged forward and commenced his attack. With one sluggish movement, he lowered his arm down and lightly plopped the edge of the stick down on to Italy's head, crushing his trade-mark swirl of hair.

With a 2 second delay, Italy clasped his head in his hands and began to run around while wildly screaming at the top of his lungs like a mad man. "Ah, ah, noooooo! Not the swirly sprig! Nooooooooooo!"

From where Italy once stood, the one man remained with the stick still in his hand. Looking him over, I took in all of his features; dark black hair covered by a dusty sheet-like object over his head, emotionless eyes, brown-sugar skin, and a thin layered, long sleeved, white robe to match his head-sheet. I quizzically looked at the man for a while until he turned to look at my baffled face. As he noticed the odd stare I was giving him, he struck a confused look of his own. He silently looked himself over before wiping his hand over his face to make sure there wasn't something on it.

"Egypt?" the America and England simultaneously exclaimed.

"What are you doing here?" England questioned.

"Hm…" he sighed. "A better question would be… what are you all doing here?" he slowly replied.

"Hey man, we asked you first! You tell us!" America demanded.

"…I came here on holiday…." Egypt sternly replied with his arms crossed.

"From what?" England asked in a confused tone.

"… the sand."

I looked around in several different directions. "But there's sand everywhere!"

"Yes… but this is different sand."

England slapped his hand to his forehead.

"I've explained myself; now what are you all doing here?" Egypt asked.

"We were looking for some dude who wants a golden tomato that our boss here found," America said before wrapping his arm around my shoulders with a cobra-like grip. I waved my hand at Egypt in greeting with what little wiggle room my arms had.

"… could you be more specific than 'some dude'?" Egypt requested.

"We have no clue who he is, but he sounds pretty wacky," Zack stated.

"Wacky?"

"Yeah."

Egypt became silent again and contemplated the facts until they started to make sense. "Strange man looking for a golden tomato…" he mumbled. "Yes, I think I saw him yesterday."

"Really, you did?" I exclaimed before leaping out of America's grasp.

He nodded with a vaguely awkward look on his face. "He kinda looked like a famous man…" He tapped his finger to his chin. "… who in the world did he look like…?"

"Mel Gibson?"

"Tom Cruise?"

"Johnny Knoxville?"

He shook his head. "No."

"Dane Cook?"

"No."

"Estonia?"

"Who ever said he was famous?"

"Dance companies?"

"… no."

"Hugh Hefner?"

"No."

"Orlando Bloom?"

"Not even close…"

"Barak Obama?"

"He's just your president. Nobody ever said he was allowed to be famous."

"Jackie Chan?"

"No."

"Will Smith?"

"No."

"Willow Smith?"

"Isn't that the same person?"

"You'd think that, but no."

"Chris Brown?"

"Lady Gaga?"

"That guy on Scrubs?"

"Paris Hilton?"

"Absolutely not. Why Paris Hilton?"

"Hey, don't judge, man. I'm just throwing out names here."

"What else?"

"William Shatner?"

"Anne Hathaway?"

"Sarah Silverman?"

"Conan O'Brian?"

"Jim Carey?"

"Betty White?"

"Jeffree Star?"

"Kim Kardashian?"

"Matthew Broderick?"

"Alfred Hitchcock?"

"Kanye West?"

"Arnold Schwarzenegger?"

"Ben Affleck?"

"Batman?"

"Okay, I think we've gone a little too far with Batman, guys," I said.

Ignoring my previous statement, America threw out, "Your MOTHER!"

"What? My mother is not a famous man…" Egypt retorted.

"She may not be famous, but where's the proof that she's not a man? Hahaha!"

"My God, you are so immature! I can't believe you!" England scolded.

"Aw, cm'on man! It was just a joke! Lighten up!"

"I'll lighten up when you stop being such a fat buffoon!"

For the next five minutes, Zack, Cloud, Italy, Egypt and I quietly watched as we sat in the sand with bored looks on our faces as the two countries had at it and fought about each other's imperfections and the reasons why they do their jobs wrong. After about the 5 ½ minute mark, Egypt snapped his fingers and quietly said, "Right, that's who he looked like…"

"Huh? Who?" I quickly responded.

"How could I have forgotten…?"

"What, what? Spit it out!" I demanded.

"… it was Chuck Norris."

Instantaneously after those words had been spoken, not a single one of us were left not silenced. My eyes widened, my pupils dilated and my face took the appearance of someone who had just been hypnotized by a man with a washer on a string. In a deep, serous voice of fright, I slowly exclaimed, "Chuck NORRIS!"

"Chuck Norris," the group whispered after me.

"Chuck Norris!"

"… Yes, it was Chuck Norris. Would you mind if I gave you directions?" Egypt said.

"Chuck Norris?" I repeated in a high pitch.

"Yes, yes, and speaking of which, you've been searching for him in the wrong direction," he coolly stated.

"Wait, WHAT?" I screamed.

"Yeah, when I saw him, he was headed in that," he pointed his finger over to some small sand dunes, "direction. If you had been going uphill, you would have found him yesterday. But since you were going downhill this whole time, you'll have to double back and walk for another… um, 3 days."

England's jaw dropped, Zack fell to his knees, Cloud slammed his sword into the ground, Italy started to cry, I started to feel my face start to glow red with anger, and America, oh, ho, HO, he was looking down at his twiddling thumbs while whistling a jolly tune.

In my eyes, the fury of a cougar began to rage in my pupils. I tightened my muscles, sprang up, latched my hands around America's neck and began to throttle him, screaming, "You idiot! Your damn compass is broken! You cost us THREE DAYS!"

"I didn't mean to," he choked out

"Like hell, you didn't!"

"Wait, hold on a minute," Egypt interrupted in a concerned tone.

"Not now, Egypt!" I snarled at him.

"I only said that it would take 3 days to walk. I never said it would take that long to tunnel…"

I dropped Meri to the ground. "Pardon?"

"You're forgetting that I still have my dog," he pointed out as he pulled out his small dog, named Anubis, out of his large, brown hiking bag. The dog's name was quite fitting being that his face deeply resembled that of the Egyptian god Anubis.

"Oh em geee! Hiya, 'Nubi!" I affectionately squealed at the tiny chiwawa-like dog.

"Aw, dude, it's so… hairless. But it's so cute!" America cooed while petting the small animal's head.

Sensing that enough was enough, Egypt pushed the two of us about arm's length away so we would quit petting his dog. "We should go…" He set the dog down on the ground and quietly ordered him to do something in Arabic. Instantly, the dog sprang up and dove head first into the ground, creating and ever growing tunnel that was just big enough for us to all comfortably crawl through. I found this to be impossible being that the dog was about the size of a medium-sized pig. With little more than a shred of uncertainty, the entire group crawled into the hole with Egypt in the lead, behind his dog, and me close behind him.

For about 2 hours, we crawled as the dog continued to dig its deep pathway, which we didn't mind one bit. We had flashlights and the tunnel was soft and cool so it didn't matter how long we stayed there. There was no sun light to be found, and that was a wonderful thing. But after 2 hours and 15 minutes, the dog started to get tired so we sat in the tunnel for a bit to let the dog drink and eat some beef jerky. (Yeah, beef jerky, you heard me right.)

Anyways, during that time, we sat in the tunnel and chatted over our new canteens of water that Egypt gave us earlier. We talked for a while before the subject of the store came up. Soon, we were laughing hysterically at what we all thought Germany was doing to our poor, unfortunate customers.

At one point in the discussion, Egypt left the company of his dog, crawled up to me and tapped me on the shoulder. I turned my head to face him and he murmured, "May I ask you something?"

"Sure! Shoot!" I said with an enthusiastic smile.

"How are we supposed to know which direction to go?"

"What? I thought your dog knew that!"

"No, I tell him where to dig. I need to know where to dig, where north is, and where to start digging upwards."

I gaped. "Are you serious?"

He nodded.

"Aw, damn! Why wasn't I told this before we started digging?"

He shrugged.

I rubbed my head a little before asking America, "Yo, Alfie'!"

"Wazzap?"

"Which way is north?"

"How should I know?"

I scowled at him. "Because you have an internal compass!"

"Oh yeah, well mine can't point north. Sorry."

I slumped over against the wall of the tunnel. "Well that's fantastic."

"Why are you even asking me about it? You're the one with the map."

Suddenly, it sparked in my mind that this was true. I did have a map. A magical map that told us where the tomato guy was at any time as long as he was in this realm. I violently slapped my forehead and swore a little in a few different languages. "Dang, aren't I a dumb ass!" I quietly snarled.

"No kidding," England added before taking a sip of his mystically appearing tea.

"Oh, you shut it!" I yelled at him while shuffling through my bag to find the map. My arms soon emerged from the bag with the rolled up, crusty map in my hand. "I could hold the map and tell you where turn," I suggested to Egypt.

He nodded. "Okay."

About 20 minutes later, we set off once again to go find the man. We made wild lefts and rights as I shouted out the directions to Egypt who repeated them back to his dog in the Arabic translation. We dug for another long 3 hours before the others started to complain about the cramped tunnel and the lack of oxygen and how we were all sick of getting mud and dirt on our hands and knees. It was like sitting behind the wheel of a car that was jam-packed with a bunch of complaining toddlers. Luckily, by the time they had started complaining about how boring all this was, it was already about time for us to resurface.

At the point where I was about to yank out my own hair, Egypt held out his hand in front of my face, signaling for us all to stop. Up at the front by Egypt, Anubis stopped his digging at the sound of his maser's command.

"Yo, what's up man? Why'd we stop?" America asked.

"I can hear him…" Egypt said as his dog's ears twitched a little.

"Mhmm, he should be in the area right above us," I said as I looked at the 2 blinking marks on the magical map representing us and the tomato man.

"Make an immediate U-turn," a GPS woman's voice repeated multiple times from the map.

"Oh, shut it, you stupid map!" I growled while flicking the talking paper.

"I bet that Potter kid could turn it off," England said with a victorious smirk.

"Oh, aren't you just so supportive," I said sarcastically.

"Everybody, grab on to the person in front of you," Egypt interrupted.

"Sorry, man, but I don't want this stinky Brit grabbin' onto by ass," America complained.

"…you have to grab on to something," Egypt said in a more forceful tone.

"Oh, fine!" he grumbled.

"Hey, what's this all about?" Cloud asked as he grabbed on to my ankles which now felt like they were about to pop off.

"We're going to resurface so you need to hang on tight," he warned. He grabbed on to the dog and whispered some more Arabic into his pointy ears.

"So, uh, when are we doing this?" Zack timidly asked.

"Hmmm… about," he looked down at his imaginary watch. "now."

Suddenly, we were shot directly upward like a human power drill or some sort of rocket. We zoomed through the newly dug tunnel at high speeds with our ears popping and dirt flying past our faces. Within 10 or more seconds, I could see the dirt start to get lighter and I could feel the air all around us start to get hotter. Everything around me kept gradually changing until the dirt turned to sand and then suddenly, BASH! We burst through the sandy surface and flew through the air, leaving a gaping hole behind us. Immediately upon the resurface, every last one of us lost our grip on each other, sending us all separately flying in all different directions.

Once gravity took its sudden course, we all found ourselves plummeting towards the desert sand. Out of impulse, I refused to let myself hit the sandy ground, so much like a cat, I forced myself to spin upwards and attempt to land on my feet. With the right position and footing, I landed perfectly on my feet, leaving barely a grain of sand splashing up my pants.

I brushed the sand off my pants, feeling great about my landing, and began to walk off towards where the map had told us to go. Though, I was suddenly stopped short by my fellow explorers who, ironically, landed right on to me, sending a hunk of hot sand down my throat and into my hair.

I sighed. "Easy come, easy go…"

While struggling to get out from under the weight of somebody's ass pressing down on my spine, I saw others heaving and brushing off sand and tunnel dirt off themselves. It was a sad, yet kinda funny moment to see all of them squirm around with sand up their butts.

"Is everybody okay? No missing limbs?" I asked after finally struggling out of the pile of people. The entire group nodded in reply. "Awesome! No broken bones means no hospital bills!" I cheered before shooting my arms up in victory. I slammed them back to my sides as I suddenly discovered a place on my arms that I didn't know could hurt so bad.

"Okay, so… where's the guy?" Zack asked.

"Good question… I don't see him…" I said as I hiked myself onto my feet and held my hand over my eyes like a visor.

"So, you mean to tell us that you dragged us all the way out here for NOTHING?" England snarled.

"No, I'm saying that he's here, he's just not here."

His face instantly turned an angry shade of red before he stomped off and plopped himself down in front of the edge of the hole.

"Well this was a huge let-down," Zack sighed.

"Yeah, bummer…" America agreed.

As I looked all around me, I started to feel like a real shitty person. I dragged all of these people out here just to have them all end up sandy, sweaty and disappointed. Talk about a pointless waste of time and energy.

I let my shoulders sadly droop and apologized in a melancholy tone, "Hey, I'm real sorry guys. I dragged you out here for nothing. This is all my fault…"

"Aw, don't say it like that!" Zack insisted.

"Yeah, man! We totally don't blame you!" America encouragingly said.

"Weeeeeeell…" England started opposingly before Cloud forcefully elbowed his back.

"Well… since there's nothing left to see here, why don't we get our stuff together and start heading home," I gloomily announced. "We should do a head count; Zack?"

"Here."

"England?"

"Present."

"America?"

"Yo."

"Cloud?"

"Here."

"Egypt? You wanna tag along?"

He optimistically shrugged.

"Cool. And Italy?"

There was a strange silence.

"Is Italy still here?" I nervously asked.

"I don't see him," Cloud replied.

A nervous drop of sweat dribbled down the side of my face. "Aw fuck! We lost Italy!"

"Oh, wait, he's over there," Zack pointed. About 10 feet away from us, Italy was crawling around on the sand like a deranged centipede. I almost didn't know what to make of it, until I remembered why I let him come with us. From the looks of it, and from what I could figure, Italy was searching for some sort of trap door, but it seemed to be more than that. He was searching for the hiding place of Chuck Norris.

Instantly, I ran over to him and skidded down onto my knees, ignoring the contact of the scalding hot sand on my bare skin. Disregarding the questioning stares or the others, I crawled on my hands and knees right beside Italy until he suddenly stopped and spread and excited smile on his face. Following his lead, we both dug through the sand as fast as possible. Soon enough, the others around us began to dig beside us as sand flew through the air, creating a non-metaphorical dust bowl.

After a couple minutes of digging, we all simultaneously "ow"ed the second we all hit our nails on the lid of a metal surface. From my perspective, this had to be the fanciest metal box I had ever seen. The metal was stainless steel with a glistening sheen to it while the edges were lined with pure gold paint. Dead center of the box was, possibly, it's most noticeable feature; a large red button. We all stared at it for a little while and, after exchanging a few uncertain glances, I reached out my hand and slowly pressed down the button… sadly, nothing happened.

"Well, shoot…" I sighed. "I hate to say it again, but I'm real sorry. Looks like we'll have to go home empty handed…"

"It's too bad we couldn't find him," Zack sadly sighed.

"Mhmm. And to think, I thought that Italy was on to something," England admitted before suddenly stopping short in his train of thoughts.

Upon that, a shadow coming from behind me cast its self over everybody in front of me, leaving them all wide-eyed and speechless like a group of brain dead fish. Confused beyond explanation, I waved my hands in front of their faces. The only change that happened was a few of them decided to blink.

"Uh, guys? Hellooooo? What's your deal?" I asked them all with my hands flailing above my head.

They remained silent for a while until a stuttered two words were uttered by them all simultaneously, causing them to seem like a pack of zombies, "Ch-Ch-Chuck Norris!" For a second or two, I figured they were just pulling something on me because they didn't want to make me feel too bad about my fault. I soon decided it would be wise to not believe that to be true when I turned around to find the figure of a large, buff man with an intimidating, brown, bristly beard lightly covering the lower half of his face. With an emotionless expression, he said in a rough actor's voice, "You rang?"

Joining in with the others, we all stuttered the same two words spoken before, "Chuck Norris!"

"Yes, that is correct. I am the one, the only, Chuck Norris… impersonator!"

"Oh God! He's gonna kill us with his chin-fist!... wait… impersonator?" I asked in great confusion.

"Yep, you heard me right. I may not be the real Chuck Norris, but I'm the closest thing to him," he said before reaching his hand out to me to help me up off the ground. He gave me a smile and asked, "Are you Dagas?"

"Uh, yeah…" I unsteadily replied.

"Fantastic! So you're the person who found my tomato! It's so great to finally meet you face-to-face," he said after yanking me off the ground with the force of a real Chuck Norris arm.

"Shit, I think he just dislocated my arm! I thought while looking up at him with a cheesy grin.

"Wait, wait, let me get this straight," England butted in. "You're not the real Chuck Norris."

"Mhmm."

"But you're the world's greatest impersonator of him?"

"Not quite; I'm the ONLY Chuck Norris impersonator."

"How does that work out?" England asked.

"Well… I was born in a small town and, as I grew older, the town started noticing that my childhood appearance resembled Chuck Norris'. By the time I was 20, I looked exactly like him. Later on in my life, I was studied by some scientists and they determined that, even though I'm not the real deal, I'm almost the exact embodiment of him. From then on, any other impersonator of Chuck Norris was illegal and I was dubbed the one and only. Makes sense, bed-head?"

England simply grumbled at what he had taken as an insult.

"Yeah, but besides the DNA, is there any other difference between you and the real guy? Cause I sure don't see one," Zack questioned while looking him over.

"Yeah, man. I wouldn't be able to tell the two apart," America agreed.

"Oh, that's easy! See, his name is Chuck Norris, and my name is Chuck Florris!"

I gave him a weird look. "And that's it?"

"Yep, that's it."

"Well that's totally average," I said sarcastically.

"'Ain't it just?" America agreed.

"Okay, since you're here now, where's the tomato?" Chuck asked with a hint of stifled excitement.

"Uh, it's right here. Take it and never lose it again!" I sternly said while praying that no one group would have to go through what we just did.

"Yes… YES! It has returned to me!" he cried with shimmering eyes as he held the tomato up to the sky.

Suddenly and with no warning, the sun hit the tomato, causing it to grow and grow, until out of the blue, it exploded with a bang, leaving behind a blast of air that violently blew back our hair and created the effect of a quick and violent sand storm. When we looked up, in the place of the tomato was a magnificent, large, golden-feathered eagle. Once Chuck had climbed onto its large back, the eagle directed its beady-eyed gaze towards us. It looked at us for a while, its mindless head twitching while still locked on our freaked faces. It did this until, before taking flight, the large bird blasted out an ear-shattering screech that sent us all flying backwards with the smell of worm-breath circulating around our nostrils. With that, the eagle, along with Florris, took off into the distance, leaving no sign of themselves behind.

I stared at the spot where they once stood. "Well," I sighed, "that was unexpected."

"Oh, bloody hell! If only we had known what that bloody tomato was! We could have flown here! And now we don't have any other way to get home besides walking and digging! This is a disaster! We might as well just drop dead where we stand!" England loudly grumbled while storming about like the pissed Brit' he was.

"Way to cheerfully state the obvious," Zack grumbled.

"Don't be so sad, guys! There's no need for that. Don't you see?" Italy asked with a cheery grin.

We all remained silent.

"It's all good! I've got pasta~!" he cheered.

"You bloody git! We have no more water! Quit acting so happy when there's no hope left! You're not helping, so why don't you just go to hell!"

In response, Italy dropped his canister of uncooked pasta, slumped onto his knees and decided to sulk in the sand like a pouting 3 year old.

I heavily sighed. "England! Making everyone around you feel bad is not helping! All Italy was trying to do was help out a little and there was absolutely no reason for you to bitch at him because of that! Now go sit in the corner!" I furiously scolded.

"Wha- … what corner?" he smarmily objected.

"I said go sit in the corner!"

Grumbling under his breath, he reluctantly stormed off about 10 paces away and took a seat in the sand.

"Unbelievable!" I griped. "He could at least try to help out instead of being such a frump! I bet Egypt could put up a better effort than him!"

"Speaking of which, where is he anyways?" Cloud asked as he scratched his impossibly spiky hair.

"Wait, Egypt's gone?" I feverishly asked.

"Uh… yeah, I don't see him," Zack replied.

"Aw damn! Now we can't even dig home! This is just great! Just great! I-" I paused as my cell phone interrupted my rant. "WHAT?" I screamed into the phone.

"Dagas, this is China. I-"

"Who in the world gave you my number?"

"That is not important!"

"Okay, well screw that; why'd you call me?"

"It's Germany! Japan and Kyoya lost control of him! He's taken over the mall and turned it into some sort of German-ruled hell house! Customers are being frightened away by his freaky German café and we've barely earned a cent in the past two days! It's a disaster-aru!"

"He did WHAT?" I screeched into the phone. Listening closely, I soon heard what sounded like a war zone on the other line. I distinctly remember hearing the horrified screams of my terrified customers screaming things such as, "No more!" and, "I'm going to a new outlet mall! This place is shit!" and, "Noooo! For the love of God, no! not the wurst!"

I gaped, my lower lip quivered, and I could have sworn I felt a horrified tear dribble down my cheek. "Good God, he's started a fourth Reich…" The fact that Germany had more than likely ruined my wonderful business tore me to pieces. Those stinky, stupid customers I had gained over the past year or two; gone! That hard-ass German got rid of most all of them within no more than 48 hours! Now where would all of my fictional characters work? Starbucks? No way in hell! I could never let that happen! Not in a million years!

"Alright, China; what I want you to do is go tell Japan and Kyoya that I want them to close up the mall early- no questions asked. I want all those customers out in the next half and hour; got it?" I barked.

"And if Germany refuses?"

"Um… hit him with a wok."

"Right! I'll go tell them at once-aru."

"Thanks for the call," I thanked him before shoving the phone back into my pocket.

"What was that about?" Zack asked.

"Uh… Kyoya called… he had a question about the shared management at your shop and the book store," I stuttered, my back to him so he couldn't see my eye-brow quivering in disgust.

"Oh, well the management can be pretty confusing, even for me," he admitted.

"Y-yeah, that is true."

"So, moving on, how are we going to get home?" he asked.

"Uh… oh! I have no clue," I moaned, my ass now seated back in the sand.

"I might have an idea…"

"Yeah, and what would that be?" I asked, looking up at whoever had said that. My eyes suddenly started to bug out of my head when I realized; the man who said that wasn't in front of me, but instead was floating above me. I looked all the way above me to find a massive carpet hovering right above my head. Sitting atop the carpet was the figure of a still very apathetic looking Egypt with his dog at his side.

"Whoa! Where'd you come from?" I exclaimed.

He looked up, then turned back to me. "I don't know…"

"Oh, who cares! Let's get the heck out of here!" America hollered, shoving past all of us to get the first seat on the beautifully embroidered gold and purple carpet.

Following his lead, we all quickly made our ways to the carpet, found a seat, and took off into the distant skies, home being the only thing on our minds. I breathed in the scent of fresh air and spread a happy smile as the refreshing gust of wind blew back my tied back ginger hair. I looked up and all I could see was a bright blue sky with no end. It was just plain gorgeous. This truly was the feeling of flying on air.

A few minutes after we had taken off, I nudged Egypt with my elbow and asked, "Say, Egypt?"

"Hmm?" he mumbled.

"Where did you get this carpet, anyway?"

Without hesitation, he replied, "Oh, I stole it from a street-rat."

* * *

><p>The minute we got through the door which lead us to mini-Hollywood, we all agreed on riding with style by riding the few blocks home on the carpet. We took a sweep through mini-Hollywood to take a look at all of the sights and said hi to Johnny Depp again before soaring right over the entrance gate, baffling the hundreds of fans at the front. Though everybody on that side of town stared at us like a smile child would stare at a frog, it was still the most enjoyable ride home that I had ever taken.<p>

Within minutes, we arrived back at home sweet home, which, strangely enough, was oddly filled with my regular amount of customers. I hopped off the carpet once it had landed in one of the parking spaces and immediately assessed the damage of Germany's rampage. Strangely, not a store sign was out of place. Although this would be normally taken as a good thing, I couldn't shake that something was very wrong here.

Without a second though, I bounded to my office to make sure nobody I didn't know about was under the store's management. Sure enough, in my fancy leather chair in front of my fancy wooden desk, with her grimy feet placed on the wooden surface of the desk, sat none other than Sunni the Hobo with her little Hitler squirrel calmly napping on top of a stack of my paper work. She had her gaze placed right where I stood, as if she had been waiting for my arrival.

"What're you doing in my office?" I sternly asked.

"Why, managing your mall, of course. What did you think I was doing; juggling melons?" she retorted, a deep edge of cockiness in her tone.

I looked at her with a sudden glare of shock in my eyes. "Why?"

She took a slow breath. "Let me put it this way; say I owned a nice mall such as this. I gotta hand it to yah, you've gotten pretty far in this game to get a mall working this well! Frankly said, the people that you left in charge of this place," she paused to give me a discouraging look directly into my eyes. "yeah, they sucked ASS." She continued. "I just hated to see my technical home being destroyed by a hard-ass German forcing wurst upon your customers and two quiet Japanese virgins who hardly knew how to handle cleaning the shops."

I suddenly changed my stare from a pure sense of fear to great astonishment at what I knew she was trying to get at in her explanation.

"I despised seeing your lovely stores being brought to shambles, so I decided to duct ta- uh, send them to the 'naughty chair' while I took over. I knew that if I were you, I would hate to come home to a messy mall, so I fixed up the place for you. Everything is back to normal and business should be booming by tomorrow," she finished as she took a sip of her Mello Yello can through her pink bendie straw.

I gave her a confused stare. "Wait, wait, wait, why would you do that?"

She took another sip. "Do what?" she asked, an innocent grin snapping across her face.

I began to feel a frustrating snarl coming up my windpipe at a creeping pace. "Help me!" I loudly elaborated. "Why the hell would you help me when you always seem to be trying to ruin my business?"

She took a large, prolonged sip until the can was sucked dry. She casually dropped the scan into the waist basket next to my desk, dropped her propped up feet to the floor, leaned forward with her hands folded under her chin and said to me with a burning sincerity in her tone, "Because I live here too." In the next instant, much like any other day, she poofed out of sight, leaving nothing behind but a thick cloud of smoke.

As dramatic as this sounds, I totally killed the moment with my coughing, sputtering and dire need to open all of the windows and the front door. Once all of the smoke had cleared out of my office and the door and windows were closed, I plopped onto my comfy chair and leaned back at I took in all of my familiar surroundings.

I looked up at the ceiling, lost in all of my newly discovered thoughts. That soon ened when I looked down at the discarded can in my waist basket. I picked it up and slowly began to observe the features of a can that came from my own vending machine. I sighed, vaulted out on my seat, and screamed loud enough for my office to discover that it had an echo, "This is supposed to be RECYCLED!"

* * *

><p>(I give partial credit of the chapter idea to SuperDuperGir. She gave me the crazy idea of Chuck Florris when I was in a dry spell and I really appreciate the help in making such a great chapter. You rock, bronie! X3)<p> 


	7. Chapter Six

Chapter 6: Unexpected Inspection

"Thanks man! Have a good one!" called back one of my newest customers.

"Yeah, you too!" I cheerfully replied, a gleeful smile on my face as I waved farewell. Vigilantly, I watched the boy trot back to his car which contained his teenage girl friend. He stepped into the driver's seat of his silver Subaru, gave his girlfriend a flirty peck on the cheek, slammed the car door and made his merry way out of the parking lot. Only after the car was out of sight did I allow myself to begin my hissy fit.

"Aaaaaaaaah! Damn it!" I screamed after slamming my face into one of the throw pillows in the lounge of my office. "I'm back for a week and my employees are already screwing up!" I angrily wailed.

Since our little fiasco in mini-Hollywood with Chuck Florris and Egypt's carpet, we had already been home for about a good week, give or take a day or two. Since then, even with Sunni the Hobo bringing back the status quo, we had started having a lot of restocking issues. See, in a popular mall, such as this, there can be many items which we have found to be customer favorites. Due to the popularity of these items, we are forced to restock at least once a week. It's not anything that's too difficult to figure out, and yet, my employees had already thrown my system out of wack. As simple as this problem was to fix, it completely infuriated me to no end.

"Why," you may be asking is the reason for this? Let me break it down for yah; today, being a Sunday, had started out pretty mellow and uneventful. With most people at their religious masses or at home watching Sunday football, business is usually expected to be pretty slow. Because of that, we all plan accordingly to anticipate utter boredom. A lot of us will bring a good book or a magazine to read. Others will bring along a hand-held game system to play around with. Everybody has their thing that they stow away and save for Sunday. Today, however, was especially slow with two or three people pulling in every half an hour or so. Most of these people, being regulars, knew exactly what they wanted and would be out the door in a few minutes. Just how I like things to be: completely normal.

Getting to the point, surprisingly, we actually got two new customers: a young, high school junior, supposedly named Sam, and his same class, beautiful girlfriend, Gwen. Sure she was the cutest thing in the world to him and all, but there was one thing that really seemed to get to me; she was 8 months pregnant. To be honest, I've always found it pathetic to see a couple of dumb ass teens who have gotten way over their heads all because they couldn't keep their pants on. A bad choice on their part, but still funny to scoff at all the same.

Anyways, today, the two were out shopping for some oddly specific things: a baby's sized teddy bear, a popular children's book, a thanksgiving wreath, an autumn scented candle, and a big box of "sorry we fucked" chocolates for Sam's mother. Again, very specific, but, fortunately, these were all popular things that were fully expected to be in stock. This is exactly where things started to go wrong.

They first stopped at the Undertaker's place to get the bear. None seemed to be in stock. Putting aside this minor setback, the two migrated to Barns and Noble to get the book; Leon was fresh out. Frustrated as they were, they still moved on. The wreath was the next to find. Morty had sadly regretted that they weren't on the shelf. If I were them, I would have left that joint right then and there. But nope, they moved on to the candle and the chocolates. And what a surprise they got: neither of the items were in stock.

At this point, Sam had gotten pretty peeved off. Being the kid that he was, he told his girlfriend to stay in the car while he went to go complain to the head honcho herself, AKA, me. Within minutes, I had gotten the ten all of the things he needed and let him go on his merry way home.

Now, as easy as this problem was to solve, it would have been easier to avoid. Knowing this to be a fact, this little situation had just found a way to completely ruin my good day.

"This shouldn't have happened at all. What is everybody's deal? That stuff should have been restocked yesterday after closing…" I mumbled under the floral throw pillow.

"What should have been restocked?" asked a new, familiar yet discouraging voice from behind me. I looked up to find the owner of the Banana Republic and Old Navy shops, Light Yagami. When he first became an employee here, I had pulled a joke on him by saying that he would work in the life insurance industry. I laughed, he laughed, and then my fund was over.

"Um," I stammered as I sat up from the sofa. "Have you heard about the restocking problems yet?" I asked him, assuming that the word had already gotten around.

"Heard about it?" he rhetorically asked, an eyebrow raised and his left hand placed on his hip. "I'm having those exact problems down at Old Navy! You know those popular new skinny jeans that I keep running out of every three days or so?"

"Yeah…" I trailed, knowing what he was getting at.

"Gone! I never got the restock yesterday! It's so bizarre," he elaborated.

"Dayum! What the hell is going on here?"

"I have no clue. You could try asking Izaya, Mori, or the gang at the storage unit, but all I know is that none of us got restocks after closing."

"Wait, why ask Mori?" I questioned.

"What, you haven't noticed? On his breaks he lingers around the parking lot. If any sort of random information were to be said around that time, he would have heard it."

"Huh… I never knew that," I marveled. "Thanks for the tip!"

"No problem. I just have to ask that we get this solved before tomorrow. We're pretty lucky that this happened on a slow day."

"You got it! I'll have this fixed by the end of the day," I promised him as he started to walk out.

"Fantastic. Thanks for the help," he said as he walked towards the door.

"Anytime."

I waited a few seconds for Light to get back to his stores before leaving myself to go find out what the dealio was with this little slip up. I stopped first at Izaya's place to consult with him. Obviously, he was still pissed off at the Monopoly money that I had given him the last time I got his info. Instead of offering the same deal as the last time, he simply told me to get out. I saw this as a respectable thing for him to have done. Politely, I let myself out without questioning his reasoning.

Stubborn as I am, I refused to go directly to the countries to ask them. Instead, I went to go ask Mori who, at an uncanny moment, was outside on his break. I first commended his impeccable timing. He looked down at me and responded with the twitch of the corner of his mouth. I figured this was his attempt at a half grin. After that, I asked him if he had heard anything about this on his last break yesterday.

"Hm…" he contemplated with his deep voice. He was silent for quite a long time before saying, "I didn't hear much. But I did hear something about… something like a world conference. A few countries were talking about it the other day." I began to gape in amazement as that last statement buzzed through my head. I almost couldn't believe it.

Sure enough, when I arrived at the warehouse, the first thing I noticed was a discarded slip of paper on the pavement. I picked it up and read, "Gone world conferencing! Be back whenever!" I could instantly tell who wrote this simply by looking at the tiny American flag that had been carefully sketched in the bottom right corner of the paper.

"Oh, for the love of God!" I snarled. "They must not be here today either! As, now I'll never get the restocking done in time for tomorrow!"

"'Ey! Whachoo bitchen about?" asked a slurred, Hispanic voice from behind me. I turned around to find Spain lazily trotting towards me in his fancy world conference outfit.

I gaped and angrily grabbed him tight by the shoulders. "Where the hell were you all yesterday? We've got restocking issues out the wazoo!" I screamed as I throttled him.

"Wha… so Greece didn't take care of that?" he asked once I had stopped violently shaking him.

"Wait, wait? You put Greece in charge?" I roared at him.

"Oh, yeah, we did… I guess that wasn't the best idea," he admitted as he started to break out of his drunkenness.

"Why the hell would you do that?"

"Well, he never participates in the conferences, and I don't think he ever wants to be there anyway. We needed somebody to watch the place so we put him in a box and wen without him… is there something wrong with that?"

"Like hell, there is! If you put somebody in charge then they have to do their work, not sleep on the job!"

"Um, so I guess that means you aren't going to accept my apology churros?"

I slapped my palm to my forehead. "No, I don't want your damn churros!" I paused for a moment and sighed. "Do you know where you put him?"

"Yeah, I guess so. Why do you ask?"

I sighed again as I pulled out my cell phone. "Well we gotta get him outta there. Can't have the world missing a country, now can we?" I paused for a moment as I pulled up a familiar number on my speed dial. "Yo, Joey… Ayup… How fast can you get here? … Awesome, we'll be at the back of the warehouse… Kay, kay."

"Who was that?" Spain asked as he followed my lead and leaned back on the wall of the warehouse.

"An old friend of mine. He should be able to help out."

"How?"

"Hmm… let's just say he's good with a bow."

* * *

><p>"Okay, let her rip!" I hollered.<p>

On my mark, Joey let go his grip on the arrow nocked on his bow, sending it soaring towards the box which Spain had directed us to. As soon as the shooting range arrow made contact with the wooden crate, the frame shattered, sending Greece, and Captain Cat, tumbling to the concrete floor.

Although Captain Cat had woken up upon the shattering of the box, Greece was still sound asleep when he hit the floor. Pathetic as it seems, if found his sleeping habits had officially escalated to a talent.

"Thanks, Jo'," I thanked him as he lowered his bow.

"Anytime. Oh, before I forget, I just got that new order placed for you. The shipping company said it's a slow month so they should get your stuff shipped to me by tomorrow."

"Awesome! I'll send the guys to pick up the shipment tomorrow after closing."

"Sounds like a plan, Stan! Lates'!" he said as he trotted out the door, bow and arrow in hand.

"Later!" I called back.

"Say, who was he?" Spain asked.

"Oh, he's an old friend of mine. He works at the gas station across the street and places my shipments for me."

"Why does he do that for you?"

"Duh! I'm under 18. And I haven't finished high school. If I placed an order with my birth date on the form, the shipping company would rat me out to the police, or worse, the school system. Joey's 22, so the shipping company doesn't care what he orders. It's as simple as that."

"Whoa… joo're under 18?" he exclaimed.

I gave him a nasty glare. "I have nothing to say to that."

"Say to what?" Greece mumbled as he sat up from the floor.

"Ah, you're awake, mi amigo!" Spain greeted him as if they were old drinking buddies bumping into each other at a grocery store.

"Mmmmm… yeah. I was having this great dream that I was watching the Olympics with my mother… only the Olympians were all cats…"

"Oh, seriously?"

"Mhmm."

"Oh, seriously?"

"Mhmm."

"Oh, seriously?"

"Mhmm."

"Oh, seriously?"

"Yes! Seriously, Spain!" I rudely interrupted.

"… seriously?"

"Uhg! Whatever, I have to go finish the restocks. Spain, go find the other countries and tell them to do the restocks NOW. World conference or not, we have angry customers not finding what they need, and that is never a good thing."

"Okay, just remember to cool down a bit, chica. When you're not happy, nobody else can be happy."

I let out some steam with a sigh. "Yeah, I'll remember that. Thanks Spain," I said as I started to walk out the door.

"Anytime, chica."

After walking out the door, I scowled softly under my breath, "He may have a good point… but damn it, I'm no "small girl!" And I ain't Spanish either!"

* * *

><p>"Oh, thank you sooo much! I thought this would never get done!" I graciously thanked B, who I had put in charge of the countries to make sure they got their job done.<p>

"It was nothing. True, those guys are like a large mass of mad 8 year olds, but they're easy to control once you know, ahem, what makes them tick," he innocently said, his red-eyed gaze directed to his feet.

"Pardon?" I fearfully questioned.

"We just finished with the last store," Russia announced as he walked up to us.

"Good work. Dagas says that she's quite happy with your fast pace today," B said with a suspicious grin.

"Wonderful. So, that means…"

"Yes, I'll keep my word. A promise is a promise. You can go tell the others that you're all done for the day."

"Oh, many thanks! Good day, Mr. B!" he said in Russian as he left.

"As to you, Russia," B replied in Russia's native tongue, a perfect use of the language and accent sliding past his pale lips with every word he spoke.

"What the hell was that?" I angrily questioned, hands on my hips and a menacing glare burning into the very core of B's skull.

"I don't see why you're asking this when I've already explained myself; they're easy to control once you know what makes them tick."

"Yeah, and what exactly is that supposed to mean?"

He sighed. "I just gave you a perfectly blunt answer to what you asked. There is no need for you to have not gotten what I meant." He paused to scratch the back of his head in an irritated manor. "Judging by what they all truly fear, I told them that I would inflict their own fears on them if they didn't get the job done within a specific time frame."

"And by inflicting their fears on them, you mean…?"

He heavily sighed again. "Well, in America's case, I told him I would buy the freakiest horror movie on the market and make him watch it with his eyes taped open."

"Oh my God! That's horrible!" I gasped.

"Eh, I've seen worse. Russia's threat was far greater than that."

I could feel a chill crawl up my spine. "What did you threaten him with?" I warily asked.

"I told him I would tell Belarus where he was."

"You're despicable!" I screamed before smacking him on his fore arm.

"I suppose you're right on that note. Keep in mind, however, that my methods are rarely flawed," he pointed out with a proud grin.

"Oh… damn it! Why do you have to always be right?" I snarled.

"Maybe you would know if you had listened in school," he scoffed.

"Fuck you! I listened in school! I got straight A's, you smart ass! And, besides, I'm part Polish! The Polish are slow. If you're so smart then you should have known that," I stubbornly corrected him with my arms tightly crossed.

He shrugged. "I apologize for not knowing one's nationalities just by looking at them once," he said in a cocky monotone. "Being Polish isn't exactly a legitimate excuse for not continuing an education."

I was about to throw out a cocky response, and then I realized, "Hold on, I never said anything about not finishing school! How'd you know that?"

"It's not too difficult to figure out your age. Either your fifteen or an abnormally sized 18 year old. Besides, it's quite impossible for you to handle the job you have now and academics at the same time."

I paused for a moment. "Alright, now I want the real answer."

He allowed his shoulders to slump down and meld in with his hunched posture. "I hacked into your permanent records on my first day here. I wanted to make sure you wouldn't pose as a threat to me…" he looked down at my short stature. "Clearly I had nothing to fear."

"You snarky son of a bitch!" I shouted before slapping his arm again.

He snickered a bit behind his confident grin. "You know, maybe I could take you more seriously if you at least had a high school diploma."

"Seriously? Why does this keep coming up all day? Screw school! I've got people skills!" I argued as I stomped off. By now, I was completely fed up with the mere mention of school and I didn't want to hear another word of it.

"You'll get nowhere without it!" he tauntingly called out.

"School's boring! Life is too short for boredom, B! I'm merely a mocked innovator!" I ended up walking away from him having the last word.

* * *

><p>By the time B had finished looking over the restocking it was just about 8:00 PM, about time for us to close on Sundays. Due to that, I immediately had to have everybody close up shop for the night. Since it was a Sunday, I felt no need to ruin everybody else's day so I calmly patrolled around the parking lot until I saw all of the stores' lights turned off.<p>

Before going to bed, I found most of the employees were quite relieved to not have me explode at them for once. As upsetting as it was to see how others thought of my management, it did give me a huge reality check.

"Huh, maybe I should start calming down a bit…" was my last thought before shutting off my office lights and heading up to bed.

The rest of the time I had before 10:00, I lay in my bed wracking my mind about what to do about this new problem. Throughout my thought process, I continued to return to what Spain had said earlier in the day. "When you're not happy, nobody else can be happy." I started to upset myself the more I thought it through. I loved being the manager of such a unique place, but it completely tore me to pieces to come across as an evil dictator with a bad temper.

For the longest amount of time, I had no idea how I could solve this mind numbing problem. I went to sleep without a clue of what I should do, but when I awoke the next morning, I found myself with an idea that could change it all.

* * *

><p>"I'm sorry, <span>what<span> happened?" I stressfully asked Suzaku. He was standing in front of my desk, a fearful look burning in his vividly green eyes.

"I just got a customer wanting to buy one of my leather recliners. The second he took a seat, POOF!" –he motioned an explosion with his hands- "Scraps of newspaper came flying out from the cushions!"

"Rolo…" I snarled through my gritting teeth. "I'm gonna ki-" before I could finish my sentence, I reached down to my left wrist, pulled back the aqua shaded rubber band that I had placed, and let it snap right back, leaving a stinging pink mark wrapping around the top of my wrist.

"Um, why'd you do that?" Suzaku finally asked after looking at me with a funky stare for a second or two.

I groaned, "I've been trying to control my temper so that I don't bitch out at all of you guys. So to help with that, I'm leaving this rubber band on my wrist for the next two weeks so that when I get mad, I can just whip myself with the band."

"Huh, well that sounds like a good idea! But… doesn't it hurt?"

"Very much so."

"Ah… So, um, what should I do about the paper?"

"Just get Lelouch to sweep it up and keep the store running. I'll find Rolo for you."

"Okay, thanks Dagas."

"No problem."

Immediately after Suzaku had walked out, I made sure to snap the rubber band again. Keeping calmness in mind, I left my office moments later to go find the paper-ripping menace. While on my search, and in between one of my sessions of driving the rubber band into my wrist, I was suddenly greeted by another of my unwanted guests.

"What're you doin'?" asked a familiar voice.

"Oh my God," I grumbled under my breath. "Gee, Pants, what're you doing here?" I asked before snapping the band back for, like, the hundredth time today. Naturally, I didn't expect a good answer from him.

"Nu-uh, I asked you first! What're you doing?" he stubbornly asked.

I reluctantly said, "Trying to find Rolo… Have you seen him anywhere?"

"Um… I think I saw him talking to that creepy albino kid a couple minutes ago."

"OMG! Thank you sooooo much!" I squealed.

"Yeah, don't mention it… And, uh, what's with the-"

"Rubber band? I don't have explain myself to you. Now go find your stupid brother and get the hell out of my mall," I demanded. Frankly, I felt no need to hold my anger back from such a bother as Pants.

"Jeeze, no need to be so mean," he grumbled as he stomped off.

Quietly, I couldn't help but whisper, "Damn, that felt good!"

Within minutes, I made it to the Undertaker's toy store. Unfortunately, I didn't see Near or Rolo anywhere in sight.

"Damn. The Undertaker must have thrown them both out," I grumbled. Knowing how predictable my mall can be, I immediately made my way to the back of the toy store. Sure enough, right behind the store sat the two children. Near was playing with a new toy robot and Rolo was rolling around in a pile of his own newspaper shavings, giggling like a homicidal maniac.

"Having fun there?" I asked them, hands placed on my hips.

"Most certainly, thank you for asking," Near said with Rolo continuing to squirm around in his paper.

"You two!" I said as I pointed a finger out at the both of them. "Out! Now! You've caused me enough trouble already! And Rolo!" I directed to him. "Pick up that damned paper and get the hell out of here, NOW!"

"Gyah! Okay, okay! I'll leave!" He squeeped.

"Good!" I snarled before snapping the band again and leaving them to fix their shit.

I walked away feeling accomplished, like I had actually handled something smoothly today, but my troubles still had yet to end. It was still early in the morning and the worst of the day was still to come right about, oh, say… now.

"Dagas! Oh my god! You have to come here right now!" Harry screamed at me, his legs going as fast as they could take him and his arms flailing as if he was about to take flight.

"Oh come on!" I snapped. "What is it, Harry?"

"Th-there… there's a man… at the… shop," he stuttered between breaths.

"So? Is he asking to buy something that you don't have?"

"N-no… he's pretentious… and snooty… and he has a strange clip board and pen… he's not saying anything, he's… just looking around with an irritated look…"

"Shit…"

"What? Do you have the fanciest idea of who he is? I can't tell…"

"A snooty man with a clipboard can only be one guy… it's the health inspector!"

And indeed it was. True, the man didn't have any badge that specified which health department he was with, but who's to say he couldn't report us in and shut us down with the flick of a wrist.

Curious to whom this man really was, I asked Harry to lead me to where he last saw the man. Soon, Harry and I had zipped our way to Office Max and, once inside, quietly crawled behind a huge shelf of tutorial books for dummies. A few aisles away, the stuffy man was tapping a silver pen to his lower lip while looking intently at a shelf of spiral notebooks. Standing close by, Cedric stood next to him with a nervous look struck on to his face.

"That him?" I quietly asked.

"Yes, that's him. Came in about 15 minutes ago," Harry replied.

"Hmm… he sure looks odd," I said, making an observation. The man had a nice pair of thin glasses balancing on the bridge of his nose and perfectly combed brunet hair with a fancy swirl sticking out of his part. He wore a clean, slate grey business suit with perfectly polished black buttons on the cuffs and middle seam and bore a strange, snow-white ascot that completely compromised the business-man look.

After a few more minutes of observation from my view on the dusty floor, I whispered, "Well, we might as well suck up to him before he decides to shut us down." I then stood up and quietly made my way to the notebooks. Harry desperately tried to stop me, but there was no changing my mind. I was determined to kiss up to this nicely dressed hell-bringer if it was the last thing I would do in this establishment.

"Excuse me, sir," I said as I tapped the man on the shoulder. After feeling my finger touch his jacket, I had to hold myself back from jumping back at the touch of such a fancy, foreign substance.

"Hmm? Yes? Is there something I can help you with?" the man asked in a nasally, possibly Austrian accent.

As he turned around to properly look me in the eye, I couldn't help but be drawn to his face. As clean and proper as his face was, there was one thing that lessened my high hopes for him; he had a mole. It's not like it was a big, cancerous, hairy mole, but the fact that is that it was the only thing wrong with his face. It was just there, and frankly, it was extremely distracting. I seriously was tempted to take some duct tape and stick it on his face to cover it up, but my determination to make a good impression on him held me back.

"Good morning and welcome to the world's truly one and only fantasy outlet mall. I'm head management, Dagas, and it's a pleasure to have you here," I said as I held out my hand with a cheesy grin plastered on my face. Before doing anything else, the man quizzically looked at my face, down to my outstretched hand and wrote something down on his clip board. Nervously, I held out my hand until he set down his pen and took up the greeting with a clean, perfect hand.

"How do you do? It's nice to finally meet the owner of this large establishment. It's hard to believe that just one person of your stature can own such a large place."

"Is he saying I'm short?" I thought as I considered what he had just said. "Um, it's not easy, but I do have a lot of help from the employees. They're the best people I could ask for to get the job done," I honestly complimented. My flattery towards my employees suddenly caused Harry's ears to turn pink.

"Hmm…" the man hummed before taking up the pen and writing something else down on the board. "Good to know," he said. "Now, is you don't mind, I'll be taking a look at this mall of yours for the day. No need to take notice of my presence, I'll just be looking around throughout the day." He gave me a quick, discouraging smile and said, "You won't even know I'm here."

"O-okay…" I stuttered. "I hope you find everything to be ship-shape, sir," I nervously choked out.

With the man's last discouraging words still floating in my head, I watched as he tucked his pen atop his ear and left the Office Max, his eyes locked on the notes he had already taken.

"What are we to do?" Cedric wailed once the front door closed.

"He'll have our heads if his finds anything amiss in the mall!" Harry added.

"As true as that is, the best thing for us to do is take his word for it and pretend like he's not there. The calmer we all seem, the better of a grade he'll give us. Now, let's all just calm down and…"

"Holy heavenly biscuits! Did you see that? There's a health inspector here! We're all as good as homeless!" Masaomi wailed at the top of his lungs after bursting through the front doors.

I glared at him for a little bit before turning back to Harry and Cedric and saying, "Here's a tip, don't act like him."

* * *

><p>The rest of the day, not just in my case, but in everybody's, every move we made was the most nerve-wracking thing we've done. With a stuffy health inspector floating about all of the stores, none of us could even wipe off a table without finding the need to clean it a second time. As far as the custodians and I knew, there was no need for the mall to be condemned due to health concerns. True as that was, each store owner was responcible3 for the cleanliness of their own work space. Though the grand majority of my employees are pretty tidy, the thought still didn't ease my nervous nature.<p>

All throughout the day, while everybody was trying to ignore the Austrian snoop, I was struggling to be a step ahead of him. While he would be investigating some other location, I would be hopping store to store to check that everything was clean as a whistle. It wasn't much since, since all of the stores had been cleaned early in the morning already, but it didn't hurt to check.

"Dagas; do you read? Over," Bard called to me over the walkie-talkies.

"Yeah, I read you, over."

"Health inspector just left Gormagon. He's making his way towards the Video Cave, over."

"Roger that. Thanks for letting me know, over." I clipped my walkie-talkie back on to my pants, feeling good about the inspector's pace. Once he stepped through the door of the Video Cave, he would have gone through 1/4th of the mall in one hour. If he kept at that pace, he would be out of my hair within the next 3 hours. With that thought in mind, I felt I could rest easy knowing the man shouldn't be here long enough to see anything go wrong.

The rest of the day would be simple; we'd just go about our daily routines, and by the time the health inspector left, we wouldn't even notice him leave. Everything would work out just fine.

"He's just left the Old Navy/Banana Republic, over," Bard reported a few hours later.

"Great! Thanks, over," I joyfully said to him. There was no need for him to have reported that, however. I had already been cautiously watching Light's shop before Bard had ever noticed the inspector inside.

The inspector's day was just about over, and I was starting to get a little antsy about my mall's report. I was feeling confident, accomplished, and as I did most days, proud of the great work my employees had done.

"And thus, we're in the clear," I sighed as I watch the inspector step into Little Red.

"And what would lead you to believe that?" asked a sly voice from behind. I hopped around just in time to see Sunni the Hobo wave her fingers at me before poofing off to the unknown in her trade-mark puff of smoke.

I stared wide-eyed at the spot where she had stood, terrified for the world as I knew it. The inspector was at his last stop, and hell knows he'd notice how very wrong Greil's store was. That, along with what Sunni was now scheming, adding up could only lead to this mall becoming an empty lot in the blink of an eye.

"Shit! We're dead!"

* * *

><p>"So, handsome: while you're snooping around my store, might I interest you in something in a beautiful, dark shade of red for your wardrobe?" Greil asked the inspector with a wide grin spread across his burning face. Though the man greatly reminded the reaper of his stuffy higher authority, William, the inspector had a way to him that seemed to act as a magnet for this creepy, cross-dressing ginger.<p>

"No, I'm quite satisfied with my own attire, thank you," the inspector replied, referring to his royal blue robes he had left at home. He stated this without drawing his eyes away from what he was currently writing on his clip board.

"Oh, you're no fun," Greil pouted as he fixed his scarlet coat. "Well, pay no mind to me. I'll just be going about my business," he chimed as he slinked off to the back of the store. The inspector paid no mind to the comment and continued with his work.

"Ah, okay, now where are those heels?" Greil asked himself out loud as he looked around the back room. He looked around for a couple of seconds, observing every last item that sat on the numerous shelves, before he remembered where he placed the extra shoes. After finding the shoes, he pulled out the step stool leaning against the wall and yanked 6 shoe boxes off the shelf.

As he carefully stepped off the stool, he heard a squeak. It wasn't a loud or obvious squeak, but it was just loud enough for you to hear and think twice about where it had come from. Greil chose to ignore the sound and stepped over to the west end of the store where he stocked up the heels.

A few more minutes passed, and in that time the squeak continued to be periodically heard from all different parts of the store. None of the customers seemed to notice, though the inspector began to get increasingly suspicious the more the sound was heard. At one point, Greil was tempted to go find a pair of ear plugs so he could really ignore the sound. Though, they wouldn't go to as much use unless they were used by the inspector after what was about to happen.

While discussing with a customer about what kind of shades of lip stick would look good with her skin tone, Greil suddenly spotted something scuttle along out of the corner of his eye. At first he took it to be a large spider, but even then, spiders never got that big. The conversation he was having with his customer soon stopped when, padding its way between him and the woman, sat a big, terrifying squirrel. Mind you that this was no ordinary forest creature. No, for this was none other than the angry-looking, thieving, menacing Hitlar Squirrel.

There was a short moment of complete silence before the mustachioed rodent stepped forward and, with a devilish look in its beady eyes, tapped its paw to the tip of Greil's shoe.

Instantly, his pupils grew small, his smile turned to a horrified frown and his throat tightened before, much like the stereotypes of women perceive, Greil belted out in a horrible screech. He rapidly leaped atop the nearest shelf, grasping the hem of his long jacket as to not allow the rodent to touch it.

"Aaaaaaaaaah! It's a filthy rodent! Don't let it touch me!" he wailed at the top of his lungs.

With that one screech out in the air, the clothing store began to turn into a mass riot site covered with large mobs of screaming women scurrying from a single small squirrel. All over, women were clambering on top of shelves and chairs while others were bursting out of the front door. And as all of this chaos broke out, the inspector calmly looked around and jotted down some more notes on his precious clip board.

"Ahahaaaaah! Get it away!" a fearful woman squealed as she burst out the door.

"What's going on? What happened there?" I feverishly asked the woman.

"There is a furry rodent in that store!" she wailed looking like she was on the verge of tears.

"Oh no… no, no, no! I can't afford to have this happen!" I exclaimed. Without another though, I ran as fast as I could to Little Red with the worst possible outcome being what I expected. With a strike of pure fear spread across my face, I burst open the front doors only to find what I had expected: a store in shambles. Though the store wasn't physically damaged, the entire area was crawling with women (and Greil) standing atop shelves and chairs, holding up any skirts or long clothing as to not allow the forest creature to touch it. At the center of the store, the stuffy inspector stood calmly, jotting down little marks on the clip board while periodically looking up at the madness surrounding him.

"Sunni…" I snarled deep in my throat. "Wait a minute…" I thought as I looked down the rows of shelves at the inspector. "That nut doesn't seem to have really noticed! If I can catch that rodent in the nick of time, we might still have a small chance of survival!"

With a glint of hope in my heart, I pulled my hoodie off my arms and kicked down the stoppers on the front doors. Much like a matador, I crouched down right in front of the open doors and held open my hoodie, ready for a quick catch and release.

From the far end of the store, I could hear several screams and a squeak or two. I squinted my eyes to try to look to the very end of the aisle. Seconds later, at the very end, I saw the hairy vermin appear. It stopped dead in its tracks the moment it sensed my glare.

Much like a cowboy battle scene, I began to ready my hoodie, the western music ringing in my head. I glared down at the squirrel, the squirrel glared down at me, and after an intense stare down, the creature began to charge down the aisle straight towards me. I readied myself, preparing to snatch it up before it left, although, much to my surprise, the rodent managed to outsmart me. I held out the jacket, but before I could make a move, the furry Nazi launched its self over me and out the opened doors. From behind, I could hear its tiny feet land on the concrete and scurry down the parking lot, but I wouldn't dare turn around to look: I wouldn't dare look back at what could be the worst mistake I had ever made.

I allowed my held up arms to drop down, leaving my hoodie set on the velvet carpet of the store. I looked up at the inspector and he looked down at me. With a straight face, he clicked his pen and placed it back atop his ear, concluding that he had seen enough.

I felt my eye give out a stressed twitch as the inspector brushed past me and out the door. Greil had stepped off his high post and had approached me to see if I was alright; I wasn't. I was dead on the inside, just like the rest of my precious business. I sadly looked up at Greil, a doomed look on my face, and simply said in a cracked tone, "Oh, hell no..."

* * *

><p>It was now mid-afternoon and the chaos from before had died down. Thought it seemed like the inspector's work was over, he still took a look at the warehouse to complete his report. As he came back to the parking lot, I fearfully stood in the front of my office, waiting patiently to hear the dreadful word "condemned" slip past his lips. He calmly walked towards me, his clip board finally set still and his silver pen clipped on to the board with the rest of his notes.<p>

The moment he had stopped to give me a report, I interrupted him to say, "Oh, just say it! This joint is as good as gone, isn't it? We're all out of jobs because of that stupid squirrel!"

He looked at my saddened face, a strange look crossing his own face. He looked at me for a while and said in a simple tone, "Child, I'm not closing you down. I don't care about that incident in the very least."

"Wait, WHAT?" I exclaimed as my mood changed from sad to utter astonishment.

"I don't care about the forest animal. Although you might want to call a health inspector about that if you are truly concerned about it."

"Whoa, whoa, wait… are you trying to tell me that you're NOT a health inspector?" I belted out at him.

"Of course not."

"Then what were you doing snooping around my mall?"

"I wanted to see why the other countries were talking about this place so much."

"Wha- we… well what kind of notes have you been taking all day? Explain that!"

"Oh, they weren't notes. I was working on some artwork that I started before I left home," he said as he held out the board so I could take a look. I began to feel a strong feeling of shame as I looked down at the regal self-portrait of himself sitting in front of a Grand Piano. I would have slugged him straight in the gut if he hadn't said before I could lift a fist, "Though I am no health inspector, I did notice something odd about you; you're supposed to be in high school."

"Yeah, what of it?" I questioned.

He pulled a pink notepad out of his pocket, placed it on the board and began to jot something down on it as he said, "Well, I am free to report you into the police for not getting an education."

"Ahah, hah, no you can't. Y-you can't do that!" I stuttered with a shaking finger poised at his emotionless face.

"I most certainly can. It's illegal for you to skip out of school at this age. If you expect to safely run this business then you have to finish your education: it's essential to getting far in life."

"Not for me! I don't need school! I-I'm running this business just fine without it! Besides, school is only an educational prison! They don't have anything useful to teach me anymore! I'll have no use of it!" I nervously stammered with feverish beads of sweat collecting on my brow.

"Your argument is completely invalid, you know," he cruelly pointed out.

"No! Seriously, you can't send me back! I'm a terrible student! I-I'll get all F's! I'll beat up other kids!"

"I highly doubt that."

"I'll throw pencils! I-I'll… destroy cars!" I continued to stammer. "I… I'll bite! Yeah, I'll bite teachers a-and… and I'll turn into a vampire! D-do you really want to send a potential vampire into a school system? I'll bite them all! I'll suck their bloods and eat their homework! Hisssssssssss!" I hissed with a pose like I was a vampire in a cheesy horror movie.

The man refused to heed my phony warnings and continued to write on the pink slip. "I'll call one of the other countries in two weeks to make sure you have been properly placed in an educational system. If you have not been placed by then, then I can, and will, report you to the police," he sternly stated. He then pulled the pink slip off the pad and stuck it to my forehead. "Have a nice evening, ma'am," he said before walking towards the exit of the parking lot.

As he passed by, Germany waved and said, "Oh, guten-tag, Austria."

"Guten-tag, Germany. Gut dich zu sehen," the phony inspector insincerely replied.

"Ja, you too… ah, Dagas, I see you've become acquainted with Austria," he said to me in a tone that suggested that he felt sorry for me.

My eye twitched. "Why am I not surprised…?"

"What is this ticket for?" Germany asked as he peeled the pink slip off my face.

"I've been sentenced to death…" I angrily said before snapping my band again.

"But it just says that you have to… go back to school?"

"Yeah, that's what I meant," I groaned.

"Wait, if you have to go back to school, then-"

"Who's going to manage the mall?" Matt finished, popping in to the conversation with perfect timing.

"After what happened with my management choice last time, I think I'm just gonna ask Joey if he can do it," I said, rubbing the back of my head while wearing an anxious scowl pointed at the pavement.

"You aren't actually going to go to school, are you?" Matt fearfully asked. "You probably know more than those teachers ever will anyways. There's no point for you to go back."

"Well, it's not like I have a choice anymore. Apparently, according to Austria, either I go to school or I go to Juvie."

"Well, can't you-" Matt started.

"Nope. There's nothing I can do. The choices are school or jail. I'd rather go with neither, but at least with school I can still say I own the mall." I let out a big sigh. "I'm gonna go look up some local schools. I don't have the motivation to make an announcement, so can you two go spread the word?"

"Sure."

"Whatever you say."

"Thanks. And while you're doing that, I need a pair of fake parents, so could you find some volunteers?"

"Absolutely," Germany agreed, a concerned look fading onto his face.

"Thanks guys. You're the best," I commended with a weak smile before making my way to the back of my office, a heavy weight dropped onto my mind.

"Damn, they can't send her back to school. It's as close to a crime as it gets…" Matt sadly said.

"Ja… poor girl… So, why did she stop going to school in the first place?"

He thought for a moment. "… She says it's because of the mall. I've heard her say that it was too hard to handle both at the same time, I've heard her say that some us first generation employees dragged her out of it, but it's always a different story every time she tells it," he concluded. "I've known her for a long while, and knowing her personality, I can confidently conclude to why she really left." He paused and gave Germany a satisfied smirk. "One day, she got bored, so she left; that's all there is."

"…Really?"

"Really."

"If that's why she left, then that must make it exceedingly hard for her to go back."

"Oh, but there's more."

"Oh?"

"There's a reason why she got bored of it in the first place. The education, the teachers, all of it is useless to her. See, with the school system in this area, there's a major fact about it that's on a need-to-know basis: all of the students are as dumb as they come. As for the education; it mimics their IQ exactly… nothing they teach will be news to Dagas. If I'm correct, it'll probably merge in her ears like the buzzing of television static: noisy and tiresome."

* * *

><p>The hours went by and before I knew it, the work day was over. By then, I was still in my office, sending an e-mail to the school I had settled for. Truthfully, none of the schools in the district really appealed to me at all, but I had to settle for one if I didn't want to go to jail. It was true that none of the schools were all that good, but there were a select few that could be dealt with.<p>

I sent off the e-mail, leaned back, and prayed for a good response. I had no clue if they had any more openings in the class list, but, sadly, if I didn't get into that school then I would have to go to the school that was on the bottom of my list. If that school turned me down, then I would have to go out of the district. Earlier on, I got to a point where I figured an outside district could work out if I flew to school every day. I had to have a rain-check on that thought when I realized that the teachers would obviously find something wrong with me flying a Ho-Oh to class.

I sighed as I thought about what I would do if I was rejected out of the district. I calmed down a bit once I figured, "It's a high school, for Pete's sake! You don't get rejected from a high school!" With that in mind, I slowly drifted into one of those unexpected naps where you don't remember closing your eyes, but you fell asleep anyways.

I woke up a few hours later to find a new message from the school in my in-box. I sprang up out of my slumber and snapped my hand onto the mouse. I opened up the e-mail, only to find a very sad message that read:

'Dear child,

Needless to say, we already have enough smelly children at this school and we don't have room for any more. Have fun with your stinky life!

Sincerely,

School principal.'

I sadly looked at the e-mail for a bit before mumbling with a pouty face, "I'm not stinky… why does he think I'm stinky…?"

I pouted about the e-mail for a little while before I remembered the sad truth about what I really should be sad about; there was only one school left in the area that I could choose from, and with my bad luck, I would be accepted into the most idiotic school in the system. Sure enough, I was right.

I sent out another e-mail to the last school and within about an hour, they had responded with a confirmation. I had been accepted (despite my severe lack of papers) and I had been summoned to come to the school at 1:00 for a tour and time for my fake parents to fill out the papers.

"Damn it! I don't wanna go there!" I whined aloud as I flung back in my chair.

I had just been accepted into a school of morons, forced to spend the next three years or so in a place much worse than Juvie could ever be. No matter what I said, I would have to tough it out or it's bye-bye to my wacky home.

I sat in my chair, pathetically pouting for a good long while and trying to find a way to get out of this. Through my thinking and struggling to find a way out of it, I gained a new philosophy. It was now apparent to me that I could never get out of this, but if I were to be stuck with school, maybe I could find a way to flip the switch. Instead, why not make it so that school could be stuck with me?

I felt an evil grin spread across my face as my mind began to spur with dastardly thoughts of the deeds I would commit. That was it: if the school system wanted me, they could have me. They could have me and all of the abnormalities I brought with me.

"Yeah… this could work."


	8. Chapter Seven

Chapter 7: School of the N00bs

"Really? These are my fake parents?"

"They were the only ones who would volunteer," Germany apologetically admitted

"Really?"

I had asked Germany and Matt to go find people who would volunteer to be my fake parents for today, but I never expected such irony. In front of me, standing quietly and patiently on the pavement of the parking lot was the ironic pair of Light Yagami and Lelouch Lamperouge. Now, if you didn't know a thing about these two, you wouldn't find any reason for the two of them in a group to be ironic. On the contrary, they could be clones if their faces and hair were the same. Though they had different methods, the two of them both had a desire to rule the world, regardless of how many people they would kill.

I sighed as I tried to figure out how we would pull this off. Sure, transportation to the school would be a bit of a problem, but not as much of a problem as it would be to calmly explain to the principal that I have two "daddies."

"Ah, okay; I've gotta be at the school by 1:00 today…" I thought aloud. "Light, would you be okay driving Matt's car there?"

"As long as I can air it out first," he replied. It was a quite well known fact that Matt was a frequent smoker, and if you couldn't tell at first glance, the putrid odor of his car would say it all.

"Good idea. Um… as awkward as this is, when we get there, you two are going to act as a gay couple…" I paused for a second to hold back a snort of laughter. "If they ask why I'm a ginger and you're not, just tell them I got if from the surrogate mother. Got it?"

"Yeah," the two of them simultaneously said, followed by a short moment with an absence of eye contact.

"Huh, getting into character already, hmm?" I humorously mocked them. Lelouch struggled not to blush at this. "Okay then," I continued. "We should only be gone for two hours or so, give or take. I'm going to go make sure everybody's opened up before I go get Joey. We'll be leaving later, so go hang out in your work places until about 12:30, okay?"

"Alright."

"Sounds good."

"Cool. Light, I'm going to go to the Video Cave and make sure Matt's car windows are open. We'll meet up there by 12:30, alright?"

"Alright. Thanks."

"No problem. Besides, I don't want to smell like cigarettes either," I replied with a grin.

I left them with that short word before starting my day. Thankfully, the entire day up till when we left was pretty average. Nobody gave me any major problems to deal with, nor did the customers have anything to complain about like they usually do. Sooner than I thought it would, time flew by and before I knew it, it was already 12:20. I decided to start walking to Matt's place by then. When I arrived, Light and Lelouch were already waiting by the car, both dressed like model citizens just coming back from a tidy office job. I happily nodded at their change of wardrobe before climbing into the back seat of the car which, for some reason, still reeked of cigarettes, burnt rubber and fried wires.

"God, now I know what the other principal meant when he said 'stinky'," I mentally said as I took another sniff and instantly thought of stinky teenagers.

We pulled out of the parking lot a few minutes later with half of the employees sadly waving goodbye to us as we drove out. Soon we were out onto the road. For me, it was the first time I've left the mall since the incident with Chuck Florris (who I was slightly hoping to see again.) I rarely leave the mall, being that it's my home and, in other words, my safety blanket. Therefore, if I were to ever leave, it would have to be for a pretty damn good reason. Sure, education was a good reason to leave, but not a good enough reason to give me any motivation.

After a few solid minutes of silently sitting in the car, the harassment-charged fan girl in me started to kick in a bit. I considered my words for a bit before saying aloud in a sly tone, "Hmm… I wonder."

"What?" Lelouch curiously asked while turning around a bit in his seat to look at me from the corner of his eye.

"Mmmmm… I got it!" I concluded, a creepy yet enthusiastic grin spread widely across my face. "He's the seme," I pointed at Lelouch. "And he's the uke," I pointed at Light. Now, I obviously knew that this assumption was a load of shit, but the ultimate goal of that was for me to be wrong. I mean, really… Lulu? Purple eyes? A CAPE? It screams uke! But, no: this statement was just a set up for my own personal amusement.

"Seme?" Lelouch exclaimed.

"Uke?" Light repeated even louder than Lelouch.

"You heard me," I said, leaning back in my seat to enjoy the show.

There was a short silence before Lelouch spoke up with a startled tone. "What in the world are you talking about? I feel so insulted!"

"Exactly! Why on earth would you even think to categorize us in that manor? I will not actually be referred to as homose-" Light yelled in an act of defending his heterosexual status. (Take a good look at your last name, Light! I dare you to spell it backwards!)

"He would be the seme and I would be the uke!" Lelouch corrected, sending a horrified look on to Light's face.

"Wha… are you seriously playing in to this?" Light sternly asked, the startled tone now passed on to him.

"Only because she's got it all wrong! You're obviously the seme! I don't see any reason why she could possibly mix that up."

"Well… as true as that is, there's no need to play in to her game," he said, his hands coiling tighter around the steering wheel.

"So you admit you're the seme," Lelouch scoffed with a smirk.

"We… ah… no, I admitted to no such thing!"

"Yes you did! You just said it!"

"Could we please stop this immaturity?"

"This is not immature! This is a heated debate over the fact that you are incapable of admitting fact!"

"This is not a fact because we are not gay!"

I started to tremble with held back giggles as I watched the both of them go at it. This dispute between them went on and on until about five till 1:00, when we arrived at the school. I was disappointed that my fun had to end so soon, but not as disappointed as I was to have to walk into a school once again.

I grimaced as I looked up at the two story building, spotting classes going on through the other side of the windows. "Welcome to hell, children; where the lunch food is moldy and all you learn is that the world is a bitch," I slowly mumbled as I looked up into a window to see a kid from the hood arguing with a teacher.

"So where do we meet up with the principal?" Lelouch asked as he closed the car door behind him.

"She said we'd meet her in the gym," I replied. "It should be right at the end of the hall behind the front doors."

"Alright then. Let's be on our way," Light said before strutting to the front steps of the school.

We entered the school through a pair of black double doors and found ourselves in a large, empty foyer lined with a few hall ways and two trophy cases parallel to each other from across the way. We looked around a bit to take in the scenery and stopped when we looked forward and found four pairs of wooden double doors. We walked forward and I suddenly gained an aching feeling in the pit of my stomach as I looked at my "parents", the realization finally hitting me that for the rest of the time that I spent in high school, I would be known as the "gay spawn." I let out a heavy breath before tugging on the silver handle and opening one of the doors.

The very first thing I saw when we walked in was the principal. She was a quite pudgy woman, about as short as me: no, shorter, which basically qualifies her as a borderline midget. she had a very chubby face with rosy cheeks and a wide smile that made a small crease in her fat face. Her brown hair bore an array of blond streaks here and there that made the color look like the color of a well-polished wooden coffee table. She tied her hair in a tight bun that belonged on the head of a Texan woman and crammed her kankle-bound feet into a brown pair of heels that matched her brown work suit. Balancing on the bridge of her nose, she wore a small pair of thin framed glasses that resembled America's. As for the rest of her face, the entire thing screamed "stressed out slave driver who constantly wears a happy mask."

"Oh, hello there, dear!" she greeted in a thick, stereo-typical Canadian accent. "You must be Dugos."

"Um, it's pronounced 'Da-gas'," I corrected her.

"Oh, ho ho, sorry dear! My mistake," she replied, still holding her cheery tone. She took a moment to look me over. Like most days, I was wearing a graphic t-shirt under a rainbow colored hoodie along with a good pair of dark jeans and my favorite pair of boots I got from Gormagon when it first opened. The woman seemed a little displeased with my fashion sense because, for the first time today, her smile cracked.

"Okay then! So these two men are your… brothers?" she hopefully asked.

"No… they're my fathers," I dryly said.

"Oh! I'm sorry, dear." Her smile cracked again.

"No problem. Uh, this is my dad, Dan," I pointed towards Light, "And this is my daddy, Stephan," I pointed towards Lelouch. My face unknowingly started to turn a pink tint as I held back a bubble of laughter.

"Oh, well, it's good to meet you both," she said as she lightly shook Lelouch's hand.

"Good to make you're acquaintance," he said in his usual cool tone.

"Likewise," Light said, cracking a friendly smile. No sooner that he cracked that smile, there was a huge splat from outside. I swerved my head around to see what had made the nose. I took a close look through the windows in the doors and saw, what looked to be, some guy with wings who had just been set on fire. From the gym, I saw it kinda sit on the ground for a while, then suddenly spring up and begin to screech at the top of its lungs as it sprinted back and forth across the front of school. It soon stopped once it rammed its self into a tree, setting the grass around it in fire as it lay unconscious and still ablaze.

"Huh, so it really is true: Light's smiles really do make angels spontaneously combust," I thought as I looked out at the flaming holy entity.

"Okay then. Shall we take a look at the school?" the principal suggested.

"Sounds great," Lelouch said.

"Hey guys," I said, stopping the two of them from following the chubby woman. "Gay guys are known for having strong relationships with their partners. If you wanna make this look realistic, you gotta look like total lovers, okay?"

Now, I could have had them avoid doing this for their own sake, but this was simply for my own sick amusement.

Forcefully and angrily, Lelouch scooted closer to Light and gripped his arms around one of Light's, much like a viper would grip around its prey to squeeze it's organs out.

"For the record, this never happened," Lelouch snarled with a tense-looking expression.

"Agreed…"

With that, we were off to tour the school, the principal glaring back at my "parents" every so often with a judgmental gleam. Homophobic much? Anyways, we started off looking at everything on the first floor, the principal, at one point, breaking the news to me that the administration would choose my classes based on what classes had slots left for one more student. This made me want to slug Austria in the nose for being such a snitch.

While we walked, we passed some very loud, on going classes where many of the students didn't know the meaning of the phrase "shut the hell up!" At one point, at the end of the main hall, we reached the school pool. Breaking some more bad news to me, the principal told me that this is where I would be taking swim class for the rest of this semester. Sure, I liked to swim as much as the next guy, but not in front of a class of bitches and a gym teacher.

As we walked through the school, I learned that throughout the next semester, I would taking geometry first hour, swim class second, then Spanish, then a lunch period, then biology, world history and last, but most certainly the least, drama class. Now, due to my storage management team, I had become a history nut, but the rest of the classes I was forced to take made me want to be crushed to death by a brick wall. Though, the block scheduling did make some of the classes shorter, it sure as hell didn't make it easier to bear through.

Soon, we had made it to the other end of the school where the principal lead us to the administration office. She stopped the three of us in front of the front desk to hand us a huge chunk of paper work. I looked at the bottom of the last page and shivered as I remembered that my hard earned tax money went in to funding this hell hole. Disappointed by what some of my profits were going to, I stepped to a row of chairs and slumped forward, watching Light and Lelouch in the chairs next to me, staring at the 4 pages that they had to fill out.

They periodically leaned over to ask questions that normal parents should know like, "when's your birthday" and, "how do you spell your last name" and, "do you take any medications?" Eventually, they asked if I was allergic to anything and I sarcastically answered with, "Glitter, popular TV shows and humans." Light sympathized with my opinions while Lelouch seemed to have taken a slight offence when I said "glitter."

While the two of them filled out the pages, I noticed a group of students sitting in a pocket at the north end of the room that was filled with desks. This, apparently, was where kids would be sent to detention. I continuously looked at the group, struggling to see what they did while sitting there. At one point, while I was straining to read the title of a book one kid was reading, one of the gangsters in the group looked up and saw me sitting next to my employees. He immediately caught on to what the two of them were supposed to be, gave me a judging look and leaned over to gossip to the blond bitch next to him. A few seconds passed and I could see him point directly at me.

I've learned, after many years of experience, to pay no mind to foolish insults, but not until now have I needed to be prepared for being made fun of for something that was completely untrue. Though it started to bother me only now that I would be made fun of for all of high school, I was suddenly even more bothered, and somewhat disturbed, that the book the one kid had been reading was a Captain Underpants book.

* * *

><p>I went home with the two of them a while later, the paper work filled out with Dan and Stephan labeled as my legal guardians. After what happened today, I couldn't stand doing any sort of work, so I decided to go to the fast food place to get a box of fries. After a while of contemplation, I soon found a way to get to my room above my office while still not being noticed by Joey. I realized that I would have to leave my room later in the day to pick up all my school supplies at Office Max, but at this point, I didn't give a rat's ass. All I wanted to do was do some sketching, listen to Panic! At the Disco and forget this entire day ever happened.<p>

As opposed to my hopes, I got the sudden urge to gather my supplies at around 6:30. I left the safety of my room, only to be greeted by Joey who hadn't known I had been in my room for the past 3 hours. He reported to me, saying that the day went great and said I could ignore him and go get my things. I said he could go back to the gas station if he wanted to, but he declined my offer right before asking if he could stay here for the night so he could avoid his psychopathic girlfriend. I assured him that the people here are no less psychotic than her, but he didn't believe my warning. I allowed him to stay then moved on to Office Max. once there, I sadly color coded my classes by note book and folder for the next half an hour.

I returned back to my office with all of my school supplies crammed into a new messenger bag I got from Hikaru and Kaoru's place. I smiled as I looked down at the flap on my bag that bore a graphic from the anime Soul Eater and remembered my dream to employ some of its characters someday… excluding Maka… nobody likes Maka.

By 8:00, I had returned back to my room, tired and still unprepared to go back to school. By now, all I wanted to do was watch some TV and go to bed. But no, tonight, I would have to go to sleep, leaving Joey to close the mall, dream about a zebra-cop who's arresting me for slipping on a banana peel, wake up, and get dropped off back at hell. Needless to say, I wasn't looking forward to the following day.

I fell asleep that night, the only phrase going through my head being, "Why must I deal with this shit?"

* * *

><p>"Fucking shut up, Nicki Minaj!" was the first thing I bellowed out at 5:45 in the morning. I had been rudely woken up at this time by my radio who thought it would be a fantastic idea to wake me up with this shitty artist. I sprang out of my bed, punched the radio to the ground, breaking it upon impact, and belted out the loudest Godzilla roar I could muster.<p>

I stormed down the hall and headed towards the stairs, but my journey was in vain. For on my way down the stars, I nearly tripped down at least four times, only to slip on the rug at the bottom and crack my elbow. Now favoring my left elbow, I stepped into the kitchen to maliciously myself a bowl of store-brand not- frosted flakes. Let it be known that I HATE store brand cereal, but it was cheap so I tried not to care. I took a single spoon full and crammed it into my mouth before looking down into the bowl and finding 3 confused bugs squirming in my sugary milk. I dumped out my cereal, placed the bowl in the sink and worked up enough rage energy to chuck my spoon at the wall. I walked over to retrieve it and also found a dent in the wall and my disfigured spoon pathetically bent on the ground.

I decided to skip the cereal and stormed back upstairs with a microwaved pop tart. When I had returned back to my bat cave of a room, I spent 20 minutes trying to find the most offensive shirt in my closet. I eventually decided upon wearing a deep grey t-shirt that said "I don't need sex, the government f*cks everybody!" Office Max had iron-on paper, so I figured I would make a new shirt later tonight.

By 6:30, I was fully dressed in an arsenal of strange clothing that would give everybody the worst impression of myself. I grinned at the reflection of myself bouncing off one of the large windows next to the door to my office. My shoulder-blade long hair was tied back into a folded over pony tail with a black hair tie with a little skull attached to it. As for my feet, they were slipped into my boots from yesterday. My scrawny legs were wrapped into a dark pair of skinny jeans, my arms had a baggy black hoodie sagging off of my shoulders and my hands were dressed in a nice pair of black, fingerless gloves I got from Clair's at a birthday party a couple years back.

I hiked my chunky bag over my shoulder and began to step towards my office door. The grin I had gained through satisfaction towards my wardrobe suddenly faded away once I had grabbed the door knob; it had finally hit me that I was leaving my one safe house in the world to go deal with the dark side of the force. Reluctantly, I stepped out of my office, leaving behind any thought of safety that I could ever feel for the rest of the year.

* * *

><p>"I know this is kind of a bad question to ask, but are you okay?" Tamaki asked as he leaned forward from the back seat.<p>

"I'm okay for now," I calmly replied, struggling to keep a positive tone.

"If you seriously need to come back to the mall, you always have our numbers in your phone," Mello pointed out, his eyes carefully watching the road in front of him.

I hated the idea of just going alone to my first day of school, so I had Mello drive me and asked Tamaki to come with. (I needed to have a cheery, supportive spirit with me to even out Mello's normally angsty attitude.)

"No, if I back out in the middle of my first day then I'll come across as an easy target. I'm not letting that happen," I dryly replied.

"If you insist," he replied, his voice sounding concerned and drowsy.

I felt a tightening pressure in my chest as Matt's car jerked to a stop in front of the school. It surprised me that I felt this way only now, being that I hadn't felt it when I had first walked into the school the day before, which made me feel even worse. It made me feel weak, defenseless, and out of place. I sucked in a big breath as I tightly gripped the musty polyester seat I had been sitting upon.

"Thanks for the ride, Mello," I sighed, half of my trying to open the car door and half of me wanting Mello to take me back home.

"No problem, Dag'."

"Oh! No! Don't leave! I don't want you to diiiiiieeee!" Tamaki suddenly started to wail before lunging forward and clutching onto my arm.

I looked into his watering blue eyes and, in a burst of emotions, a dam of tears began to overflow from the back of my eyes. I released the door handle, collapsed over his shoulder as he gripped me in his shaking arms. I flung out my own arms to take hold of him, and with that one single movement, we began to mindlessly bawl on each other, dampening each other's sleeves by the tear, for the next 6 minutes.

From all around us, I could feel the other students staring at us as we sobbed like toddlers that just dropped their ice creams. With the windows open, they could obviously hear us too, but I couldn't have cared less. All I wanted to do was have a good dramatic cry with Tamaki until Mello had no choice but to take us back home. Instead of that option, Mello took a different approach.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!

Mello suddenly slammed his hand down on the freakishly loud horn and continued to keep it there until we separated. We jumped back into our own separate seats, tears still dampening our cheeks. As rude as Mello's plan of action had been, it snapped me back to my normal self, so it wasn't a complete waste of the horn.

"Are we done here, or would you rather sob until you're sick?" he angrily asked.

"Sorry, Mello. I'll go," I sniffled. I followed his commands and stepped out of the car, boots clunking on the pavement, and closed the door behind me. Before I could get the chance to walk off, Mello leaned out the window and said in a more friendly voice, "Hey… Good luck, Dag'."

"Heh, you too. To tell you the truth, I'm honestly more concerned about the business than I am of my own wellbeing," I admitted with a weak smile.

"Be a good little piglet, mkay?" Tamaki said with a concerned tone but friendly smile and a thumb up.

I nodded. "Thanks Tamaki."

"Oh no! you gotta call me sempai, now!" he joked with a grin.

"Not on your life," I playfully sneered. I reached back into the open window of the red Chevy to give Tamaki another hug, but the second Mello began to sense the shifting mood, he pounded his hand back on the horn three more times. I sprang up and backed away from the car.

"Alright, alright! I'm goin'!" I snapped, hands held up in defense.

The two of them waved goodbye and Mello began to pull away from the curb. Though, I refused to take my eyes away from the car until it was completely out of sight. Suddenly, I was alone: for the very first time in years, I was alone.

I arrived at the school early to unpack my supplies into my new locker, only to find that I was a bottom locker. To make it worse, judging by the stench of cigarettes, alcohol and drugs in the locker above mine, some wasted douche bag had the locker right above mine. I sucked it up, put my stuff in my locker, and was able to start walking to class right before the warning bell rang. I raced to the second floor, blue notebook and folder in hand, to go find my first class of the morning. I looked around the hall until I found the class number belonging to my class, narrowed my eyes, took a tighter grip on my bag, and whispered with a single breath, "Game on."

Geometry Class: I entered the room and looked around for the one empty seat in the class room. It was right at the back in the corner, which gave me hope that I could have at least a little safety. I placed my things on the desk and pulled out a pencil and just as I was about to take a seat, the teacher stepped in to the class room. She was a pretty average looking teacher all together; shoulder length, honey-brown, straight hair, a light touch of makeup on her cheeks, a bland brown skirt that went down to about her ankles and a proper, frilly white blouse. The moment I took a look at her, I had to second guess myself to see if I was in a private or public school as of now.

She walked in to the room bouncing off of her brown high heels and said in a cheery voice, "Good morning, class! It's good to see all of your faces today… ahem, and then some," she said, motioning a hand towards me. "We have a new student joining us today. Miss, would you mind coming up to the front of the class?"

I groaned and pulled myself away from my desk to walk to the front, my feet dragging me like I was walking up the line to death row. I stepped up and the teacher stepped up next to me like I was a brand new kindergarten student.

"Class, this is Douglas-"

"It's Dagas," I sneered, holding back a frustrated glare.

"Oh, I'm sorry! Uh, this is Dagas," she corrected herself. "Um, class, why don't you give her an overview of what we've learned so far."

A fat guy in the front raised his chubby hand. "We learned about shapes and graphs and stuff."

"Well, that wasn't exactly specific, but…"

"Aw shit," I thought as I took a closer look at all of the students. "I got placed in the stupid class room!"

"We learned about 3-D shapes… like this," a blond girl said while presenting a spitty lollipop to the teacher.

"I learned about maple trees!" said some girl who was all decked out in fall colors.

"We didn't learn anything…" a dark shaded goth groaned from the back of the class. I gave him a discrete thumbs up.

"Okay, well, Dagas, why don't you show us what you already know?"

I groaned a little. "Fine… Gimme a sec." I broke away from her and stepped up to the blank white board. I picked up a black dry erase marker and, within no more than 5 minutes, the entire board was filled with what I remembered from every geometry unit I ever took, with the addition of a little comment in the corner that read in pretty obvious letters, "If the majority of you don't know half of what I just wrote then take a hint: go back to first grade."

I turned around after placing the marker back down, only to find that the entire class, teacher and all, were gaping at me like I was a messenger of God.

"H- ha- how do you know all of that?" the teacher stuttered.

I shrugged. "I know a lot of Asians."

* * *

><p>Swim Class: "I could report you into the office right now for not following a teacher's instructions, young lady!" the teacher belted out at me, her face frustrated and burning red with fury and bulging veins.<p>

"And I could report you into child protective services for not respecting my personal needs," I coolly replied, arms folded and expression blank.

Now, sure, I came to this lady's class on time, but that doesn't mean I came ready for the class. I walked into that swim room fully clothed excluding my socks and boots since I didn't want them getting wet. When class began and the teacher walked in, she yelled at me for a bit for not being prepared until her arguing turned into an all-out cat fight. She bitched, I smarmily responded and the cycle continued until she gave up, leaving me to sit on the bench by the door. The whole time that this class went on, I would glance up and see the teacher constantly glaring at me from the corner of her eye. Though, no matter how much she glared, nothing could get me into that pool. And from the start to the end of class, I reined completely victorious. For at the end of the period, the teacher had nothing else to say.

* * *

><p>Spanish Class: I walked in and could have sworn Spain had stopped in and sprayed a can of his own natural scent all around the room, his body odor being the smell of stink, a hint of bananas, and churros. The majority of the students, like most of the school, were dumb ass delinquents, but among them lay the typical Spanish speakers. The students who were actually in to the language and took this class on their own free will were all freakishly happy people who were all normally mousy outside of this class.<p>

I sat down in my desk, prepared with a tube of crazy glue to glue myself to the chair if another teacher asked me to introduce myself to the class. As soon as I had set out my stuff for this class, the teacher walked in, looking like she had just gotten off a plane from Spain. She was tan with long black hair and, from how fluently she spoke, I could tell that she used to be an actual Spaniard before coming to this horrid school to teach.

"Ah, buenos dias, clase! And good morning to our new student, Dagas! Correct me if I'm wrong, but is that a German name?" the teacher asked, a freaky smile on her face to match that of her creepy students.

"No, ma'am, it's Irish," I replied.

"Oh, in Spanish, you call me Señorita."

"My bad, señorita," I bitterly corrected myself.

"So, what do you know in Spanish as of now?"

"Um…" I paused between words to think of what I knew. "Uh, pantalones… um, gatito… oh, taco! I can say taco! Um… teléfono… mmmmmm, oh, I know one more thing! Oh, what was that again… oh!" I broke away from my moronic performance and suddenly said to the teacher with great fluency and a perfect accent, "Buenos dias a ti, oh mono de mal olor. Puedo ofrecer consejería para su bunuelo?"

The woman, much like the geometry teacher, gaped at me as she translated in her head what I had just said. The class stared at her, then at me, then back at her again. After a few minutes of thought, she unsteadily replied, pulling a chunk of her hair behind her ear, "No, you may not send my donut to counseling… but you may go down to the library, look up and think about what you just called me, young lady…"

Suddenly my grin slipped off my face as I realized what she was implying. I gathered my things, stepped out of my seat and walked to the library for my first solitary detention. Still, as I walked and thought about what I said, I regret nothing.

* * *

><p>My detention ended when the bell rang for lunch. I left the library, still feeling proud about my little Spanish incident, and marched to my locker, where the druggy and a group of his buddies were crowded around his locker. I tapped on their shoulders a couple times and even banged my fist on a locker once or twice, but they didn't seem to notice me at all. It came to the point where frustration took me over and I allowed it to do what it liked. Not thinking about how badly they could pummel me in the long run, I yanked off my left boot, grabbed it by the long end and slammed it across the head of the drunkest looking guy in the group of five. He fell to the ground pretty easily and I slipped on my boot as the pot heads glared right at me.<p>

Like nothing had just happened, I began to hum an up-beat Vocaloid song, bent down to my locker, shoved my bag inside and grabbed my box-lunch. I closed my locker and walked down the hall, humming away with a spring in my step. From behind, I heard them angrily converse and emphasize angrier words and, what it came down to was one of them trying to hurl a spiral notebook at my head. I dodged it and watched as it slid on the floor in front of me. I shook my head at the fact that the notebook had hardly been used for anything besides amateur doodles.

I turned my head and looked at all of them at once with a straight face. My eyes grew lazy and I said, "No need to get so worked up about it; I didn't hit him that hard."

I walked pretty far down one of the main halls and stopped to eat my lunch in front of one of the trashed art rooms. It was pretty clear to see that anything related to the arts wasn't all that appreciated here. I sat myself down on the dusty floor, untied the cloth around my box, opened the top and found a warm meal consisting of a sticky rice cake with a tiny smiley face drawn on it, a few veggies, steamed shrimp and three chichi dangos rolled into little balls for dessert. I smiled and made a mental note to thank Miharu for the cute little lunch when I got home.

About 10 minutes into my lunch, the gang of druggies returned with a couple of bitches. They rudely stomped up to me right as I was placing a little shrimp I had stabbed with my chopsticks into my mouth. I looked up at them innocently, my eyes still glowing with joy at my unique little meal, and realized what was going on here; the druggies were too freaked out by me to do anything, so they brought some of the top dogs to take care of their worries for them. Knowing what was coming next, I put my chopsticks into their little slot to avoid getting them shoved into my eye.

"Can I help you?" I asked.

"Oh my GAWD!" one of the skanks squeaked out with a look on her face like someone had just insulted her prom dress. "What the hell is THAT?"

I looked down and looked back up. "My lunch. Do you have a problem with it?"

"Oh my gawd!" she repeated. "That is the most disgusting thing I have EVER seen! You are SICK!" She then strut up to me, locked one foot forward, leaned down and before I could say another word, she grabbed my hair and slammed my face into what was left of my lunch. She made a disgusted "uck!" noise before leading her posy of morons back from where they came, leaving me with a face full of food.

I slowly looked up, the edges of the box making painful dents on my skin and looked down at what I had left. Though I had finished most of my lunch already, two of the three dangos I had been looking forward to were now stuck on my cheek and the last little shrimp I had left was now up my nose. I pulled the shrimp out of my nostril and placed it back into the box before pathetically trying to salvage the dangos off of my face. I only got half of the residue off my cheek, making me sad that I couldn't completely enjoy the nice little dessert. I ate the last dango, wrapped the box back up and figured it would be wise to wipe my face off before my next class. Sadly, my lunch time came to an upsetting end.

* * *

><p>Biology: after the sad incident with the lunch, I moved on to biology where I found a pretty average looking male teacher at the front desk. Class started and the black haired teacher said, "Alright guys, we have a new student here today to complete our class list. Dagas, would you wave a hand at the rest of the class?" I lifted up my hand from where I sat and waved it slightly in the air. "Good. Now, we're in the middle of studying DNA and I would like you to try to answer a few simple questions."<p>

"Um, okay," I shrugged.

"Alright. Now, can you tell me what this is?" he asked as he drew a model on the board of the typical double helix with letters on the rungs.

I looked at it for a moment and found this to be as simple as a question can get. "A strand of DNA?"

His mutual facial expression suddenly shifted to an angrily violent frown. He reached for his desk, picked up what looked like a dictionary and screamed, "That's not good enough!" before hurling the hard cover book at my head. I quickly ducked down and listened as the kid behind me got biffed in the forehead by the book, causing him to fall backwards in his seat. "It's a strand of RNA, dumb ass!" he angrily bellowed at me, his posture making him look like Matt Foley on a van-down-by-the-river-rant.

"Yeah, you might wanna try to get his questions right from now on… your life kinda depends on it," warned an apathetic looking student said to me.

I shakily nodded. "Yeah, I'll keep that in mind…"

"No talking over the teacher, Ricky!" he screamed at the kid next to me before hurling a stapler at him. "Ricky" kept low and avoided the office supply like a pro. Suddenly, I began to feel like I had just been put on my teacher's psychopathic hit-list.

* * *

><p>World History: I became a bit peppier as I walked in and figured that I would ace this class no matter what unit they taught. It seemed that there was no seating chart for this class, so I took a seat in the second to last row between a noisy punk and a blond bimbo. But this wasn't just any blond bimbo. No, this was the blond who spotted me in the office the day before while in detention.<p>

Like I said, she was blond and looked like a popularity-hungry skank all together. She wore a tight pink tank top and a push up bra that made her tits nearly spill out of the damn shirt. Her hair was long and perfectly straightened, but probably bleached. Her face was the very definition of makeup overdose and the rest of her body figure screamed borderline anorexic.

The moment I took a seat, the skank looked right at me and began to just stare at me while noisily chewing on a stick of cinnamon gum right in my ear. She continued to do this for a few long, awkward minutes before she flat out asked, "Are you a lesbian?"

"What?" I asked, my voice cracking at such a startling question.

"Your parents are gay, so does that mean you're gay?" she asked, her idiotic voice like nails on a chalk board and her eyes still blankly staring at me.

"Being gay is not hereditary, therefore I am not gay."

She mindlessly chewed for a while more until the bell rang. She turned away and never provided me with any sort of response.

We began class once the teacher stepped in and greeted the entire class with a hearty tone. Unlike the rest of the teachers, this one didn't make me guess the material and simply gave me an overview of what they had learned so far. From what he said, the class had just moved on to a unit that my employees were experts at: World War II. They had just gotten to the beginning of the war yesterday, so the teacher started off by asking a question about the start.

"Okay, now you can all think about this for a bit: I'll give you some time. But I want you to tell me everything that you remember from yesterday's lesson. You have five minutes to think."

I looked around to check the performance of this class only to see all of them either doodling, picking at their nails or drooling on their desks. Quietly and cautiously, I took up this opportunity and pulled out my cell phone. I looked through my contacts, picked one out and began to type. The blond next to me tried to read what I was typing, but I shut and locked my phone before she could catch a glimpse. A few moments later, I received a response and was ready to answer the question.

"Okay," he said, clapping his hands together to signify that the time was up. "Now that you've had some time to think, I need an answer. Any volunteers?" he asked. There was a long drag of silence where nobody answered and the teacher began to threaten to randomly pick one of them. Seeing this predicament, I raised my hand up quickly to end the mindless silence. "Yes, uh, Dagas," he said, picking on me to answer the question. Though he had picked me, he seemed a bit unsure of what I really knew. From the looks of it, he must have assumed I was just another stupid teenager here.

"Right before the start of the conflict, Germany was still paying a crap load of reparations to France who had scammed him out of a ton of money due to the Central Power loss of World War I. The reparation costs caused Germany to mass produce German marks and cuckoo clocks to keep up with the deadlines, sending him right into debt. Germany got pretty sick of paying for a war that he didn't directly cause so he teamed up with Italy and Japan, forming the Axis Powers whose sole purpose was to take down France. France made the Allies after teaming up with England, America, Russia, China and Canada. Their sole purpose was to fight back against the Axis Powers. This was basically how the whole war started.

"You probably haven't gotten to this quite yet, but since it's common knowledge, the Axis Powers lost once again, causing Germany to pay even more reparations even though the war pretty much started because he didn't want to pay them. Ironic, right? Also, fun fact: when the war began, Germany, Italy and Russia were solidly totalitarian, though that government strategy hasn't worked out for any country who has tried it out. Also, World Wars I and II were the only times in history that England and France were actually on the same side. In any other situation, they'd be on opposing sides trying to beat the crap out of each other.

"Now a days, the world is as close to "at peace" as it can get due to the establishment of the UN which was made after WWII. Though, from what I've heard, even with the UN conferences being held, nothing ever gets done. All it is is a gathering of countries that just argue over ways to keep one country from attacking another. It doesn't really accomplish a thing, but it keeps the countries busy enough to stay away from the borders."

Like the rest of my classes, the room became silent as I sat in my seat, clutching my phone to keep the vibrating from being heard. The teacher looked at me for a bit, marveling at my completely factual knowledge about something he hadn't even started going in depth with. He smiled proudly, nodded and said, "That's absolutely correct. Thank you for the participation, Dagas."

I happily nodded.

At this point, the blonde finally got a chance to see who I had been texting. She squinted at the screen for a bit before making out what it said:

Me: What are the UN meetings like?

Italy: Really loud! Nothing happens besides Germany yelling at people to stop blaming him for the war. America, France and England always get into fights, nobody lets me bring any pasta, Sealand never gets let inside and nobody pays attention to America's brother. I wonder what his name is.

Me: Beats me.

Italy: iklom,.fkjikwme,xfiopkllsjhkll,

Italy: I'm Canada!

Me: Sorry, Canada! XP

* * *

><p>Drama Class: My last class of the day was held in the second little theatre down the last hall in the school. I walked in to the room to find a dim lit room with a small stage at the far end of the room and a few jumbled rows of chairs closer to the door. Seeing no desks, I decided to sit on the floor.<p>

The teacher, bearing a messy head of hair and the weirdest hermit outfit I've ever seen, bounded in to the room from behind the back stage curtains. He walked forward a few paces, performed a summer sault into the middle of the stage and sprang up, landing perfectly onto his feet.

"Good afternoon, class!" he greeted us.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Vann!" the rest of the small class of 15 replied.

"Yes, and a hearty greeting to you as well, little miss no-chair. You must be the new student, Dagas, right?" he boomed, looking down at me.

"Yup."

"Oh, I just love your name! So exotic! As I recall, that would be an ancient Irish Gaelic name."

"Yep," I confirmed, a pinch of enthusiasm escaping my lips.

"Wonderful! So," he paused and crouched down from the stage, pulled up a chair from the front row, turned it backwards and took a seat on the stage. "Acting… what would you like to study about that today?"

"You mean you don't have a lesson planned?" I questioned.

"I cleared the plans for today because I knew I had a new student."

"Wait, wha-"

"My methods can be quite strange, little miss, but that's what makes me a good teacher! Now what do you want to learn?"

"Um… nothing?" I hopefully asked with a grin.

"That is not an option! Pick another!"

"Um… uh…"

"Why don't we show her what we learned yesterday on emotion?" a girl with tight, torn clothing and floppy brown hair asked.

"Excellent! Katrina! Aaron! Get up here and give an example!" he boomed. He then scooted his chair to the side of the stage and made room for the two of them. "I'd like you to do an improv. scene for a television drama. Setting: Aaron is about to reveal his deepest secret- go!"

"How could you have not told me this before? We were supposed to tell all of our secrets to each other! That's what couples do!" Katrina started off, a fluster of forced up tears beginning to form in her eyes.

"I'm sorry, I just… I couldn't tell you! It was too big of a secret! If anybody were to know… I'd…"

"Is it really a big enough secret to end our relationship? Is it?" she screamed.

"But it's just so horrible!"

"Tell me! What is it? Why can't you tell me?"

"Because… you'd think I'm crazy…"

She moved in closer to him. "I wouldn't! I would never think that! Why would you even think I would judge you like that?"

"Because… my secret is…" he paused, puffed out his chest and said out into the crowd, avoiding eye contact with Katrina. "I'm allergic… to puppies!"

"Nooooo! Whyyy?" she screeched, falling dramatically to her knees.

"And scene!" the teacher called out. "Great work you two!" They nodded and stepped off the stage. "Now, Dagas." The sound of my name caught my attention. "Get your butt up here and show us what you've got!"

I nervously crawled off the floor and walked up to the stage, my hands shaking like they never have. I looked around a bit only to find an intent audience expecting an epic failure. I cleared my throat, stuttered out a couple of "ums" and struggled to find my voice. Thinking of the first thing that came to mind, I gained an acting attitude and belted out, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and-" Suddenly, I heard a splat and felt something cold slap me in the face. I jumped back a pace and found the teacher with a pile of tomatoes in his lap. I wiped my hand over my cheek and it came back red with juice and seeds.

"Shakespeare's over done! Pick something else!" Mr. Vann demanded while tossing another tomato up into the air and allowing it to fall back into his hand.

"Uh… quoth my soul to the sun-" He threw yet another tomato at my cheek. "Really, man?" I angrily asked.

"I'm looking for emotion! You're developing some anger right now; use that! Get mad!" he said and tossed yet another tomato.

I clutched my teeth together and suddenly charged after the teacher. He dodged before I could get him and he tossed another tomato. This same act continued with me chasing him around the room and him throwing more tomatoes at my face the angrier I got. He and the class seemed to get a kick out of it, but I doubt there's anybody in this world that would voluntarily be soaked in tomato juice.

By the time the first 20 minutes had gone by, Mr. Vann was out of tomatoes and I was a red, sticky blob struggling to catch my breath while leaning against a wall. With nothing left for him to throw, the teacher walked up to me and delightfully asked, "Did you learn anything about stage emotion today?"

"Yeah…" I panted. "I learned I have strong emotions of hatred towards the stage…"

"Well that's a start. Now go wash off until the bell rings. I don't want you dripping on my floor."

* * *

><p>The bell rang and I left the bathroom being as clean as I could get. My clothes were now stained and my hair was damp, but I was thankful to not be sticky anymore. When I walked out, I was pretty happy that the day was over, but that was just the school day. When I got home, I would have to go deal with the problems of my employees until 10. My day was never over and no matter what I did, I couldn't foresee any possible way out of escaping going to this wretched school for the next few years.<p>

I started walking down the main hall, grumbling under my breath about how much I was really hating Austria right now, when I was stopped by a horrible sound. "Hey, bitch!" the sound cried out to me. When I turned around, I found that the noise came from the girl from my history class. She looked pretty pissed, but prideful in her plans she had in store for me. "What the hell is your deal?"

"You're the one yelling at me, so it would be more appropriate to ask what your deal is," I calmly replied in an attempt to beat her foolish comments with intellect.

She glared at me, snapped her fingers, and from the thickness of the crowd around us, there emerged a group of , what looked like her posy of underlings including a couple of pissed students from my history and swim class. "Okay, let me lay this down for you, cuz I don't think you're getting this," she snarled once her group had assembled. "We are the top dogs around here. We have a system in this joint that keeps freakazoids like you out of the big league. All these guys behind me; you totally dissed them today with your smart ass little comments, you stupid bitch!"

"Comments? I didn't say anything!" I said in my defense.

"You bitched at the swim coach and upstaged us by skipping out of class!" a brown haired girl from my swim class said, hands on her hips.

"And you made all of us look stupid in history!" said an ape-like gangster.

"Oh, you didn't even know half of my damn answer! I doubt you were even tuned in to what the teacher had asked!" I roared out, letting out some of my built up stress from the day.

There was an angry pause as the tension grew between us. I stood firm with my opinion, no matter how many scornful glares I saw.

"You've got a lot of nerve talking to me like that!" the gangster said as he started to step into my bubble.

"I think we aughta teach you a lesson about messing with the top of the chain," the blond said in a sly tone. With another snap of her fingers, I was ambushed by a mob of forceful hands grabbing on to my arms so I wouldn't break free. I was dragged down the closest back hall as fast as they could go with me kicking forcefully at their feet. Within a few short seconds, I had been forced into a bathroom (a men's bathroom, none the less), taken up by my hood and had been strung up to hang until I found a way to get down.

"Have fun!" the blond cooed to me as she and her posy slammed the door shut.

I hung by my hoodie for quite a while as I tried to figure out how to get down. Sadly enough, while I was thinking, some guy walked in, already undoing his zipper as he walked in. He was just about to let go on a urinal, but stopped dead in his tracks when he saw where I had been placed. On the stall at the farthest end of the bathroom, he found me dangling by my hood from the coat hook on the door.

"Uh… h-hi…" he stuttered.

"Hey," I calmly replied while politely waving to him. "I'm on a door."

"Wh- why are you on that door? What are you doing there?" he nervously stuttered.

"Oh, you know, just hangin'."

He immediately sprinted out of the room, forgetting to zip up his pants as he ran. I shook my head at his frantic running. And suddenly6, I realized how I would get down, but I soon became disappointed in myself that I hadn't thought of it sooner. In lifted my arms up as far as I could get them to go and slipped right out of my hoodie like a stoned snake. I reached up to grab my hoodie, slipped it back on and went back into the hall to grab the bag I had dropped.

* * *

><p>So, now my school day was really over, as it was for the majority of the other students. The big carpool rush had dialed down a bit so the streets and sidewalks in front of the school weren't completely crowded anymore. Only about 13 of the students were left waiting for their rides. In turn, I walked out the front doors and began looking for my own ride. I found myself praying as I walked out that nothing else would go wrong in the few short seconds it would take for me to find a ride. Unfortunately, with my bad luck, anything that can go wrong will.

I looked around by the curb for a little bit, my bag weighing me down more than it had when I had stepped in to the school this morning. When I had reached the end of the pathway up to the front doors of the school, I stopped and looked up and down the road to take a closer look for Matt's beat up red Chevy. I struggled a bit to find it through the thinning crowds of people, and after about 7 long minutes of searching, I heard a loud honk from a small, five-seater, silver Subaru. I turned to the car and stopped dead in my tracks, shocked to find the worst of people sticking his head out of the window. It was Shizuo. In a car I had no clue existed… with Celty sitting next to him… damn.

"Hey!" Shizuo called out the window in his typical angry tone. "Hop in!"

I angrily sighed as I glared at the nice silver car that I could have taken here to avoid Matt's smelly car. I could have saved myself the trouble of smelling like a chain smoker if only I had known about this damn car. Knowing this only made my day just a little worse.

"So, you crawled away, did you?" the brown haired swimmer rhetorically asked from behind me. "Takes more than an army, huh?"

"Hey, get in the car!" Shizuo repeated, his tone getting a bit testier.

"Bitch, what is it gonna take to break you? I thought the bathroom was enough."

"Okay, I seriously can't talk. You can bitch at me any other day, but I really have to go!" I pleaded.

"Oh no! I'm not done with you yet! You get your skinny ass over here!"

"Get in!" Shizzy demanded as he snapped the cigarette he was smoking in half.

"Hey! Bitch, I'm talking to you!" the girl yelled at me as she stormed up to get into my personal bubble. We glared at each other for a while, a cat fight flame about to ignite in her eyes, before I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and say Celty typing in something on to her hand held. I looked down at it once she was done and read, "You might want to hurry! He hasn't been having a good day so now is not a good time to get him pissy!"

"I know! I know! I just can't get away from this chick!" I sternly whispered to her.

She held out her hand towards the girl as a thin layer of blackness began to form around her hand. She nodded her head towards the girl in an action like she was asking a question.

"No! You can't do that! You'll make a scene! Besides, we better not give her the satisfaction of a reaction."

She nodded again and placed her hand at her side.

"Who the hell is this! Your fucked up sister?" the girl taunted. Her eyes held a suspiciousness in them as she looked at Celty's black jumpsuit and yellow, cat eared helmet.

"No, this is an alien form another planet called the UK," I sarcastically said. Celty placed her hands on her hips, taking my cocky remark as an insult towards her. "Oh, you know I didn't mean that," I assured her. "Listen, I'd love to stay and chat, but I have an angry little boy in the car that we need to take care of before he has a temper tantrum. So kindly-" I paused abruptly when I heard a creaking noise from behind me. It was a bit quiet at first but it quickly escalated to an ear shattering creak.

Celty and I swirled around and I began to gape as we saw what had made the noise. By the curb, Shizuo was elevating the Subaru right above his head. His arms quivered and his eyes flared with rage behind his blue glasses.

"GET IN THE CAR!"

Without thought, we dashed right up to the curb and rushed into the car once Shizuo had set it back down. As we drove off, I saw the girl running towards a posy of her bitches, obviously running off to go start a chain of gossip.

"So how was your day?" Celty typed before holding the hand held back to me.

"You know, texting and driving is illegal now," I coldly said.

"How was your day?" she typed in again.

I sighed. "Bad. Society is such a hell hole. And for some reason, people don't see why I left the school system in the first place!"

"Now you see why I don't stop by to often," she replied. "The damn police, anywhere I go, are always on my tail. I can never get away!"

"Well, I'd find you suspicious too if I were a cop," I said with a grin.

"How long do they want you to stay in the school?"

"Until I graduate into college…" I sadly groaned as I slid into my seat.

"Do they know that you won't cooperate with that?"

"I'm struggling to make that painfully clear."

"You want me to kill the superintendent?" Shizuo angrily asked from the passenger seat.

"No, then both of us will go to jail."

"How much more of this will you be able to handle?" Celty asked.

"Not much longer. There's no way I can juggle managing the mall and going to school every week day. We'll be shut down within a school year."

"Is there anything any of us can do?"

"No, you don't have to get involved. In fact, it's best if nobody gets involved."

"If you insist." She paused to take back the hand held and type in something else. "Say, would you mind if I stayed here for a little while? Shinra gave me some time off of work and I need a place to stay."

"Sure. We have some guest spaces in the ware house. Talk to Japan when we get back; he has the map."

"You finally bought out that warehouse down the street? I remember you eyeing it the last time I stopped by."

"Yep, got the new employees for it, too. They're fun to have around; good addition to the gang."

"Nice. I can't wait to meet them. Well, I hope your school situation gets a little better."

"Wishful thinking, Celty, but not likely…"


	9. Chapter Eight

Chapter 8: Master Plan

3 weeks later:

"Fuck. My. Life," I grumbled as I stepped out of the school, two limbs bleeding and my hoodie torn. I looked down the pavement and spotted Celty waving at me with her "motorcycle" at her side. Since she was only staying here for vacation and had no work to do, I started getting used to getting a ride from her every day. People thought of it as quite strange that I always got a lift from some girl who never takes off her strange helmet, but, then again, that would just be another thing to add to the list of why these morons hated me so much.

"How was your day?" she typed, same as every day those past few weeks.

"Don't talk about it," I scowled.

"Wait, what happened to you? You're injured."

"Somebody shoved me this morning so I tore my good hoodie and skinned my arm, my psychotic biology teacher threw a beaker today and some of the glass slit my thigh and that blond bitch threw something at me again so now I have a raging hematoma on my cheek bone. Now can we please leave?" I angrily listed off in one breath.

She put her hand over her chest in shock but found it right not to ask any more questions. She quietly teleported a black helmet onto my head, clambered on to her vehicle and waited for me to hop on. With my head hanging low, I lazily slid on to the back, grabbed on and gave her the signal that she was free to drive back home.

We drove into the parking lot of the mall about 10 minutes later and, unlike most days, Celty kindly dropped me off in front of my office. Joey was still supervising business in my place so he was nowhere to be found. However, I was happy to know of that. To tell the truth, all I really wanted to do was sit in my office and do paper work like the boss I… was.

The thought of not being the boss any more had crossed my mind many times before, but only now was it really hitting me. Being the situation I was in, there was a good chance that I would never manage this mall again all because of that stupid phony inspector. This fact, only now, hit me like a banana to a brick wall; hard.

With these horrible thoughts weighing me down, I slinked into my office and slumped down into the couch, my arm over my eyes to keep from looking at the cruel surrounding world around me. I sat there in silence for than 5 minutes before remembering why my bag was so heavy again today. I loudly groaned before rolling to my side and falling off the couch. I pulled myself up, dragged my bag across the floor into the kitchen and slammed it on to the table I reached into one of my lower cabinets and pulled out a brand new, family sized box of Cheese Nips. Sadly, I slumped into one of the chairs, yanked out a pencil, spread out my homework, and decided that it was now or never. Just for motivation, I glared at my text books for a few seconds, and began my task with a bellowing statement of, "I will END you!"

* * *

><p>"You know, the point of homework is for you to learn," L said as he intently looked over the sheet I was holding out to him.<p>

"Damn it, I don't want you to do the sheet, I just need you to help me do these damn proofs!"

He suspiciously looked over the sheet a second time as if to make sure I was being honest. "Alright, I believe I can help. I'm not that much of a savvy in the ways of mathematics, but I'll see what I can do." He was so lying. He knew he was fully capable of doing a simple math proof but he decided to be rudely modest instead: modesty wasn't one of his strongholds.

"So why do you need help with this? You've been listening to your teacher in class, correct?" he asked as he started to pull apart the equations in his head.

"Yes, I have! The thing is, since the first day, the teacher found out that I knew way more than the rest of her dipshit class. So she's been expecting more of me! She gives me advanced homework without giving me the lessons so I can't do it! She's giving me advanced tests too, and if I fail those, I fail the class!"

"Well that sounds awfully unfair. Have you tried asking her about it at all?"

"Yeah, but when I try to say something to her she just gives me more homework!"

"Isn't that considered child abuse?"

"I don't know! That's something YOU should know!"

He was silent to this, shocked that I would call him on something like that.

After a little while of looking over the work, he did his best to teach me how to do the proofs. His teaching was really accurate, but even with his teaching I still didn't get it. I had a few melt downs and my headache progressively got worse, but my homework was done within an hour and a half. I thanked him an apologized for freaking out so much. Thankfully, L completely understood.

From the candy shop, I gathered my Spanish and world history homework and dragged myself to the warehouse. I thrust open the heavy metal door and, remembering Japan's map routs, took the quickest path to the center of the facility. When I arrived, my face confusedly scrunched up as I witnessed Celty doing a little dance on the floor as Russia sadly stacked up a deck of Russian cards from the floor.

"What's going on?" I weakly asked.

"Oh, Celty and I pass the time by playing cards all day. This is the first time she's won. She was so happy that she kicked my cards across the floor."

"Huh… that sounds like fun."

"Say, are you feeling ok? You look sad."

"Oh, it's nothing for you to worry about. Thanks for asking, though…"

"If you say so."

"Hey, do you know where Spain and Prussia are? I need them for the rest of my homework."

"Hmm. I think Spain is-"

"Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" I heard from above us. Dive-bombing from somewhere up in the rafters came a scream and a slam as the person landed on the concrete floor. A few yards in front of us, landing by one of the closest shelves, who else should appear but…

"Speak of Awesome and he shall appear!" Prussia cockily announced.

"Prussia, good thing you're here. I need your help with a-"

"Bitch, you look awful! What happened to you? Did the little baby girl man boy give you a lecture on pianos? Ha ha ha!"

"… history assignment." Suddenly, I realized his previous piano related comment had been directed towards Austria. "He didn't give a lecture, but this is all directly his fault."

"Well what the hell do you want?" he rudely asked as he took a look at his nails.

"My history teacher gave me an extra credit assignment on you and I can't use my text book. I just need to ask you a couple of questions."

"You have to do an assignment on me? Hah! Looks like even the class rooms would rather learn about me over all of you!" he gloated as he motioned all around the warehouse with his index finger.

"Actually, I'm the only person who got the assignment. I'm the only person who knows who you are."

"Oh, they all know me! I'm Prussia! Now come with me! I can answer all of your questions in my lair!" he demanded as he dragged me away by my wrist.

"Good lord, he's got a lair?" I mentally groaned. "I don't thing I authorized that…"

"Oh, but we stomped those cry-baby assholes into the ground! With me in the war, there was no way we could lose! Those two prissy boys, England and Austria, could barely put up a fight against me!"

"Oh, good God, make it stop!" I quietly moaned with my throbbing head beat harder by the second.

By now, Prussia had been gloating for the past hour and I was desperately in need of an aspirin. As much as I hoped he would stop, he just kept going on and on and on and ON. Any other day, I would be happy to deal with his proud ramblings, but being in the drastic condition I was in, I could hardly bare it.

So yeah, for about the past hour or so, I had been kept hostage, so to speak, in Prussia's "lair." All it really was was a shag carpeted pocket on the third level of the shelf farthest to the back of the warehouse. At a glance, it almost seemed like something that the teens from That 70's Show would use as a small club house. On the inside, Prussian flags ranging smallest to largest were plastered on the walls, matching the slate gray carpet. With the ceiling not being high enough for chairs, Prussia had improvised and had set out four custom made bean bag chairs with his flag design placed on all of them. Come to think of it, it was even less of a lair and more of a narcissism cave. Though it was barely a competition to the playboy mansion, the fact that he had it gave him yet another thing in this world to gloat about.

"Why would you call me anyways? Aren't you better acquainted with Germany?" asked an annoyed voice from the ground floor. At the sound of this voice, my head perked up and a smile sprouted on my face, seeing this approaching human as a beacon of hope for my sanity.

"Hey, are you up there, Prussia?" the voice called up.

"What do you want?" he angrily called down with his head sticking out the small exit of his lair. Following his lead, I crawled across the carpeting and wriggled next to Prussia to see who it was. I looked down, hands placed on the edge of the floor, to see a slightly angry looking Switzerland looking up at us, his cell phone held up to his shoulder to muffle our conversation. His green eyes seemed to hold his regular irritation in them but, unusually, held a strange sense of confusion in them as well.

"Is Dagas in there? I have a phone call for her," he called up.

"Yeah, I'm up here. I'll be down in a second," I replied. I crawled past Prussia and watched my step as I clambered down the metal latter under the entrance. While inching down, I concluded that I would have to go get Prussia a safer latter later on, being that I felt like I was stepping down a wobbly death trap. I jumped past the last rung and asked Switzerland once my feet were safely on the ground, "Who is it? Tax company?"

"No." He let out an angry sigh. "It's Austria."

I looked him in the eye and felt my face scrunch up into the ugliest face I had made in a long time. My eye twitched and my hands balled up into a pair of tight fists.

"Yeah, I know," he sympathetically agreed as he handed me the phone.

"Hallo, Miss Dagas. Have you been situated into a school yet?"

"I'm gonna fucking kill you, you slimy son of a bitch!"

"Shall I take that as a yes?"

I sighed. "Yeah, I have, and I can't stand it! I'm literally being beaten to a bloody pulp because of you!"

"Well that's too bad… Goodbye then."

"Don't you dare hang up on me you little fucker!" He ignored my threat and hung up anyways, leaving me in my tragic misery.

"What did he say?" Switzerland asked as I handed back his old silver Motorola.

"He just wanted to know if I was in school…" I groaned.

"Why? What is it to him if you go to school or not?"

"If I didn't find a school to go to he was threatening to call the cops on me; not going to school at my age is apparently illegal."

"Well why don't you do something about it? You're stronger than this! Don't let him just stab you in the back like that!"

"Well, even if I was stronger than this, I still wouldn't be able to do anything about it. He'll tell the police if he catches word that I left and I'll be locked up until I'm 18. And let me tell you, there's no way in hell they'd just let me go because I'm a manager."

"Well, if you can't do anything, then why don't we do something? We could talk to him for you, or maybe talk to the superintendent. We could get you out of there somehow," he insisted, a pained look clouding over his face.

"No, nothing would happen. You can try but you guys will either be brutally turned away or thrown in jail with me. It'd be best if you just stayed out of this…"

"But you-"

"Stay out of it! It's not for you to deal with! I don't want you guys to get hurt or yelled at because of me! It's none of your concern! If you really want to do something, try looking for a new manager for this place! Because it's all over, Switzerland! They're gonna keep me locked up there until I'm done with school and the mall closes! There's no way I'm going back to being the manager again, so you might as well suck it up and start looking!"

I looked down at my feet and wiped at my eyes to hide my welling tears. I sucked it up and looked back up to Prussia, my eyes turning a light shade of red. "Hey, Prussia. Could you send down my things?" I sadly called up. Unfortunately, I had made a bad choice in words, causing Prussia to simply throw both of my notebooks, my pencil and eraser out the entrance, inevitable sending them dropping on to my head. I didn't oppose, I didn't yell or scream, I simply gathered my things and sadly walked away.

"What's up with her?" Prussia asked from his perch.

"What time is it?" Switzerland asked back.

"Why should I tell you? Answer my question first!"

He sighed and pulled his phone back out instead: 7:22. "Hey, Prussia! Can I use your hide out tonight?" he called up.

"And why would I give it to you, mister prissy-pants?"

"I'd like to hold a quick meeting there. Just come down here, I need you to help me gather up some people."

"Of course you need my help! I'm better than you at everything!"

"Sure you are…" he mumbled.

"So, who do we need to find? Some wimpy losers?" he asked as they walked forward.

"Some of the sneakiest people I know: the Hitachiin twins."

* * *

><p>The next day:<p>

"Alright, and then we have the quiz tomorrow, class, so be read for that," the spanish teacher said as she wrote down the agenda for tomorrow on the white board. "So, for the rest of class, we'll-" And just like that, I was saved by the bell once again, dismissing us for lunch.

Fearing for my life, I sprang out of my seat as fast as I could and bolted out the door to avoid the hungry stampede. Behind me, I could hear the crowd of hungry people from my Spanish class stomping down the hall, but with lungs ablaze, I ran down the stairs and made it to my locker before they got the chance to trample me.

"Ho! Made it!" I gasped when I made it down the stairs.

"And where do you think you're going?" asked one of the pot smokers standing once again in front of my locker.

I angrily sighed. "Step aside. I just want my lunch."

"And what do you have for lunch today? Octopus?" one of them rudely asked.

"No, today I have a sandwich, you know, like normal people eat."

They looked at each other and, finding no other way to make fun of me, they stepped aside.

"Yeah, back off, yah bone heads," I barked before leaning down to my locker. I undid the lock, grabbed my lunch, put my messenger bag inside and slammed it shut, passing by the potheads with a menacing air in my step.

Walking up the steps, I looked around carefully to make sure I wasn't about to be ambushed by the blond's regular posy. I never really did figure out her name, so I continued to just refer to her as "the blond" or "the bitch." It made things simple. However, today, the halls were oddly quiet on this end of the school. Of course, I could hear loud chattering off in the distance, but nowhere in my proximity did I see more than a single emo kid in the hall.

"This is a little weird," I warily said. I chose to ignore it and walk towards my regular hall way where I normally ate. No sooner did I find my spot, when out of the blue, one of the blond chicks who I never pay attention to began to bolt right for me. "Oh my god! What are you doing here?" she screamed at me in a frantic voice.

"Um, eating. Why?" I cautiously asked.

"Oh my god!" she repeated. "There's some guy that just walked in the front door of the school and he's, like, really cute! I mean, I've seen cuter, but he's, like….. EEEEP! You just gotta come see it!" she squealed.

"O-okay," I stuttered.

"Yay! Follow me!" she cried before running off in the direction of the front of the school. I lazily followed her, thinking that Flo Rida or Kanye West had showed up. For a while, I wondered why I was even following this chick. Then again, if this caused a full scale school riot, at least it would get me out of biology.

In a few minutes, we reached the balcony that hung over the opening to the front of the school. We looked down and the girl, yanking me to the ledge, cried as she pointed down, "Down there! He's down there!"

"Where? I don't see him," I complained. Indeed, I couldn't see a thing. Blocking my view was just about the entire female population of the school. They had formed a thick, ever moving wall around the boy, therefore, it was impossible to even see the ground under them. "Jeeze, you'd think I'd be able to at least see the guy after walking all the way over here," I complained to the blond.

"If you really wanna see him, why don't you try, like, walking through the crowd?"

I lifted an eyebrow at her. "Are you crazy?"

She shook her head. "Just try it! I mean, you look big enough to shove them away."

I gave her a nasty glare, realizing this was another way to call a person fat. "Yeah, looks like you could, too," I vengefully stated.

She gasped at me. "Really? Oh no! I knew I shouldn't have eaten that tic tac this morning!"

I rolled my eyes and decided to take her word for it and try to force past the crowd. I trotted down the stairs and the second I got to the ground floor, the crowd was only a foot away. "God, this is gonna take a while…" I mumbled. Evidently, someone in front of me heard my outer thinking and, knowing of my reputation so far, when she turned around, she grimaced at me turned back around. Most would take offense to that motion, but I took it as an opportunity.

Feeling like the king of the world, I simply stepped into the crowd and watched as most of the girls squirmed away from me, probably in fear of catching my fake parent's homosexuality. If somebody were to stay put, I would gladly shove them away, no problem. Come to think of it, this had been like a cake walk to go through, what with all of the school population hating me.

Eventually, I made it to a point where I could jump up to see the guy past the last two layers of the crowd. At least, that's what I assumed. Sadly, I was too short to see past them, making me pissed to no end. I stood in the middle of the crowd, sulking for a moment as I began to think that I would never see the guy. However, short or tall, I couldn't just let this slip past me. I was determined to see the guy before he had the chance to leave. "This shall not stand!" I courageously shouted out. Much like a moron from a cheesy spy movie, I bounded to the ground and began to crawl my way past the rest of the crowd. There was quiet enough screaming and squealing from the other girls I crawled past, but like I cared if I touched their converse.

Slowly but surely, I finally reached the front. Once I did, I was spat out of the cluster and slapped to the floor. Seeing the clearing in the crowd, I smiled widely and hoisted myself up onto my knees. Figuring that I had already gotten the guy's attention, I looked up with my beaming grin to look him in the eyes. Who met my eyes, however, stunned me into a frozen state.

"Oh no…" I gasped as I looked up at the man. His back was turned to me when I first saw him, but it was undoubtedly who I thought it was. He turned around, showing me his pretty-boy face, and I was immediately positive. My eyes bulged out of my head and my face twitched furiously as he grinned mischievously at me. "Y-y-you?" I exclaimed.

"Now what's with that tone? Aren't you glad to see me?" he asked with his normal troubling grin.

"Hi- Hikaru? What in God's name are you doing here?"

Indeed, it was Hikaru, in the bad boy flesh. Somehow, they had allowed him into my school, and now he was here, attracting the entire female population with his charms, as usual. He stood before me, dressed in his most expensive pair of tan khakis, a black t-shirt, an expensive jacket and the finest scarf on the market, which I assumed had been imported. I shuddered and backed into the crowd, slamming into the wall of feet behind me, as he continued to smile menacingly at me.

"Well now, you don't seem happy to see me at all," he sarcastically stated. "You must be stressed out."

"Like hell I am!" I sneered behind gritting teeth.

He leaned down to where I sat on the floor and placed his finger flirtingly under my chin. "Aw, did something happen at school already? You poor thing. Should we take you home?" he tauntingly asked as he slowly pulled his finger out from under my chin. I began to shudder profusely at his farce wooing attempts.

"Ahahah…" I stuttered as he looked me in the eye. "Hi-Hikaru. Uh, people are staring…."

"Oh, really? I hadn't noticed," he said sardonically as he looked up at the other girls.

"Oh my god! Bitch, how do you know him?" snapped one of the girls behind me.

I looked up and suddenly realized that I was being looked down upon by every single girl in the crowd. They looked down to where I nervously sat, crossing their arms, snarling and tapping their feet at me like I had just killed a puppy. Jealousy and malice filled the room and I scrunched up even further as Hikaru's eyes stared cynically into my very soul.

"Yeah, we know each other. Quite well, actually," he announced to the crowd, his voice as sly as ever. "In fact," he paused to add emphasis as he stared off into the crowd. "We used to date."

"Ah! No!" I hissed, my face turning red as ever. "No, stop! Don't say that! You're gonna-" I struggled to stop him. Still, he continued on, rewarding me with an even worse reputation than before.

"Yep, we used to date. I'm a free man, now," he said, checking his nails. "I'm up for grabs… so, who wants to go first?"

Immediately, the girls swarmed forward, ignoring my existence and stepping on me just to get to him. They stormed forward like a stampede in the jungle and crowded around him, staring at his features like he was God himself.

"Damn it, what the hell does he plan to accomplish with getting me trampled?" I sneered from under the crowd. And then, suddenly, it hit me: "Wait just a second… there can't just be one. That's impossible… where's the other one?" I frantically thought.

Ironically after I thought that single notion, I began to hear a different kind of screaming and squealing from behind, and just like that, I felt myself being grabbed from behind. Behind me, a pair of arms hoisted me up off the ground and began to run off with me like I was a stolen teddy bear at a carnival. In front of me, I witnessed a path being formed as I was whisked away by my unknown capturer. Faster than the speed of, well, myself, he bolted me through the crowd and, all of a sudden, as we reached the end of the crowd, my assailant sprang high in to the air, causing me to scream as loud as I could. I watched and screamed as the floor under us began to grow farther away and, as I began to think this was the end, we landed on the second floor right in front of the balcony. Once his feet had touched base, he continued to run off until we were completely unseen by the crowd.

"Oops, sorry ladies, but I must be going," Hikaru insincerely apologized. Then, he too ran off into the direction I had disappeared into, leaving the girls startled, astonished and feeling like they had just gotten a back hand to the face.

"Put me down! You little, ack..." I snapped while trying to wriggle out of my capturer's grasp. Indeed, he did eventually put me down, but only when we had reached one of the darkest, emptiest halls in the entire school.

"Jeeze, I was trying to save you. No need to yell," said my capturer once he had put me down. When I turned around, it was no surprise that Kaoru was the one who had kidnapped me, though I still found it hard to believe.

"Did you get her?" Hikaru asked as he walked towards us.

"Yep. She doesn't look too happy, though," he shrugged.

"You idiots! Of course I'm not happy! You just caused the entire female student body to hate me even more with that display! What were you thinking?" I hissed.

"We were thinking we were trying to help you," Kaoru innocently replied.

"Help? How was that helping? What shit are you trying to pull?"

"Oh, come on. You know that was fun," Hikaru slyly said.

"Fun? Fun is going to Chucky Cheeses and ruining a kid's birthday party! This was insanity! Do you know how much trouble I'm going to get in when they find out you two did this on my account? They're gonna think I was trying to sabotage the entire student body!"

"Oh, please. Take a pill. They aren't going to get that pissed," Hikaru shrugged.

"Besides, we weren't following your orders. No one is gonna punish you for that," Kaoru said with a smile.

"Oh-ho! You think so, now? Well let me tell you, you have no idea how terribly this school hates me! They will do anything to get me in trouble!"

"Hmf, anything?" the two simultaneously asked in disbelief.

"What, you don't believe me?" I snapped.

"Personally, I don't think they can punish you in any way for something as minor as this," Hikaru said.

"Oh do yah, now?" asked a rather muscular voice for a woman.

We all turned wide eyed to the woman standing behind me. It was the rather large hall monitor from the office, and let me be the one to tell you, she hated my guts from the moment she met me, on the account that she hates people eating in her hall ways.

"I want your butt in the office pronto, Dagas! And bring your little friends with you, too."

"Damn it!" I hissed. "But I didn't do anything!"

"I don't care! Get to the office right now!"

I groaned as loud as ever. "Fine… come on, guys…" I sighed.

"If you say so," they simultaneously said.

"Damn, that's freaky," she mumbled as she led us to the office.

Once we had gotten to the office, the hall monitor forced us to take a seat as she explained what happened to the vice principal and showed him the tapes of the twins alleged "rescue attempt."

"Good God, what in the world is wrong with you, girl?" the vice principal barked at me after viewing the tapes.

"For the last time, it wasn't my idea! I don't know what got into these two to make them do that!" I defended.

"Like I believe that for a second!"

"But it's the truth. We were told by somebody else to do it. It wasn't Dagas' idea at all," Hikaru casually said.

"Oh, don't try to defend her! I don't believe either of you for even a second!"

My skin became cold as I witnessed the two rudely sticking their tongues at the woman. I suddenly got the sensation that I was about to be sent to juvenile prison just because of their outbursts. It was just unbearable to even sit through.

"So, since I'm gonna get mauled by these people anyways, could you at least tell me who told you to do this?"

They looked over to each other once, closed their eyes and said in unison, "Switzerland told us to."

"Switzerland? Damn it, I told him to stay out of this!" I snarled.

"He said he wanted to help you. Something about how you weren't happy and someone needed to do something about this," Kaoru stated.

"Help? What kind of help does he think that was?"

"Ahem!" the hall monitor called over to get our attention. "Now you and your friends got five seconds to explain yourselves or I'm haulin' your asses to Juvie!"

"We just wanted to break her out of your crummy school," Hikaru explained.

"None of you were being nice to her and she got upset about it. Besides, all she wants is to go home. I mean, you could at least kick her out instead of send her to Juvie," Kaoru suggested.

"Oh, I'm doomed," I groaned, slapping my hand to my face.

"We just might if she decides she wants to pull more of this bull crap! I swear to God, I aughta call the cops on all three of yah right now!"

"Or," the two simultaneously said with grins on their faces.

"Or what?"

In just a few moments, the two sprang out of their seats, pulled out their signature dark green hats, slipped them on, and said in unison, "We could play the "which one is Hikaru" game!"

It now came to me why the two were oddly wearing the same casual outfit today: they had been planning on doing this all along. And so, this, I figured, would be my absolute downfall.

"What in God's name is that?" the hall monitor exclaimed.

"If you figure out which one of us is Hikaru, then you can kick us out. If you don't, then we get to take Dagas home," the two challenged in chorus.

Both the large woman and the vice principal glared at them horribly, feeling unimpressed as ever. "You can't be serious…" the vice principal scoffed.

"Ah-ah-ah! Once you've started the game, someone has to finish it!" the two said. "So who's Hikaru?"

"You," the hall monitor said, pointing to the twin on the left. "You're Hikiru, or whatever your name is. Now get the hell out of here or I'll make the cops drag you out."

"Oh! Incorrect! You didn't find Hikaru! Guess we get to take Dagas home," they slyly said before grabbing me by both arms.

"STOP!" I angrily shrieked at them before they could get the chance to take me away.

They looked down at me with confused looks in their eyes. "But, isn't this what you wanted?" Kaoru asked.

"You wanted to go home, right?" Hikaru asked.

"No, I didn't. I said I wanted you all to stay out of this. I said that this was my problem and you can't just solve it like this…" I coldly stated as angry tears began to bring themselves up. "I said that everybody would just get in trouble with me if you tried to intervene, and that's exactly what's gonna happen if you don't go home like they said…"

"But, Dagas…" Kaoru tried to softly object.

"No, just stop! I told you guys to stay out of this and I meant it… just go home."

"Dagas, we can't just leave you here," Hikaru said.

"Damn it! I said go home! Just go back! I don't want you all involved with my own problems! Just get out! Don't you ever come back here again!" I screamed at them as I choked back pained tears.

They looked down at me, pained, apologetic looks on their faces as they watched me sniffle back my tears. Though they would normally crack another joke at this, they now realized that they had seriously upset me. With lowered heads and low spirits, their shoulders drooped down, they began to leave the room. "We're sorry…" Kaoru sadly called back. His face grew even sadder when I refused to look back at him.

The two left and I was set alone in the room once more, fearing what they would do as punishment to me. I got a scolding and a detention date after school, but that didn't cover the rest of the punishment I received.

When I finally left the school 2 hours after it was over, Celty was still waiting for me, being the only person on the curb. It was no surprise that I had gotten beaten by the angry mob of girls after school, but it took Celty by complete surprise. She struggled to get an answer out of me to what was wrong, but I never said a word. I held on to her tighter that day as we rode home, feeling broken to pieces. I was like a helpless little seahorse in the middle of an empty ocean. There was nothing I could do about all of this now. I just had to sit back and watch as my friends try to help while I tirelessly turn them away, leaving my life to crumble before me.

I returned home and refused to speak a word to anybody else. Switzerland tried desperately to explain himself to me, but he was the last person in the world I ever wanted to talk to. He too was ignored. I went to bed early that night, listening to my world around me pass by perfectly fine without my aid. It seemed as though the mall could function fine without me around. I fell asleep, thinking that I could go to Juvie right now, and it wouldn't even make a difference here.

* * *

><p>"What happened? Dagas wouldn't talk to me when she got back," Switzerland asked<p>

The twins sadly shrugged. "Things didn't go well," Hikaru admitted.

"She really doesn't want us doing anything about it," Kaoru concluded.

"Damn… We need a new plan," Switzerland scowled.

"Um, actually," Hikaru objected. "Maybe we should just back off. You never know: maybe they'll kick her out of the school before it's too late."

"I doubt it…" he angrily mumbled.

"Then what do you suppose we do?" Kaoru asked.

"We already exhausted all of our ideas in that meeting last night. And it sure doesn't look to me like you've got anything in mind," Hikaru rudely pointed out.

There was a pause as Switzerland angrily thought, his knuckle placed thoughtfully under his chin. Then, at not a moment's notice, his eyes widened and a tiny, thoughtful, devilish grin crept on to his face. "We may have exhausted all of our own ideas, but that doesn't mean we're all out of them…"

"Pardon?" the two said.

"Isn't that a little bit of a backwards thing to say?" Kaoru asked.

"Not at all… You two," he said in a leader like tone, a single finger pointed at the twins. "Pass on the word: everyone is to meet tomorrow night at the center of the warehouse an hour after closing. Nobody can tell the boss. Got it?"

They nodded, but with wary looks in their eyes.

"Good. Make sure everyone gets the message… accept for Dagas and Joey; I can talk to him about this myself."

"Yessir!" they agreed before splitting up into two different directions to spread the word.

"Looks like we've still got something up our sleeves…"

* * *

><p>The next night. 11:30 pm<p>

Location- warehouse

"Could somebody please explain why we're here at this ungodly hour?" Ciel complained.

"Ungodly? Please! You're just cranky because it's past your bed time!" Masaomi taunted.

"Stop arguing. It's not going to solve anything," Miharu pointed out.

"Agree with your pirate clone, why don't you? Oh snap!" he retorted.

Both Ciel and Miharu glared at him, surprisingly with the same look.

This little argument broke out into chattering, arguing and yelling of all different types that echoed though out the entire warehouse. At this time, all of the employees were all sitting in a circle in the middle of the warehouse, though none of them had any idea as to why. All they knew was that they were to show up at that time at that place and that the hour of the night was making them all tired and pissed.

"Hey, everyone, please calm down!" Switzerland called out in his meek voice. When no one would quiet down, he called in his back up. With a pound of his fist onto an empty crate that was being used as a podium, the backup crowd control cried out in the possibly manliest voice known to man, "EVERYONE SHUT UP!"

"Germany?" the room cried out in confusion. In place of his usual table-pounding speech, Germany stepped aside and handed the floor back to Switzerland.

"Listen! All of you need to calm down and pay attention! I'll explain all of this once everything is ready!"

"When what's ready? You countries finally trying to kill the rest of us off?" Leon accused him.

"No! That's not it at all!"

"Then what are you trying to do? Gag us with socks and make us watch Dr. Phil?" Morty threw out in a fit. To this, the whole room went silent.

"Really?"

"Dude, why would you even say that?"

"That is just… no! That's horrible!"

"Don't even go there, man…"

A few more scolding sentences were thrown out at him before abruptly ending as the door to the warehouse creaked open. The room went silent again as a single pair of footsteps drew near to the center where the group was gathered. After a few minutes of silent waiting in anticipation, from around the corner, Joey appeared and announced to Switzerland, "The bird is in the nest. All clear."

"What's with the spy code?" one of the employees asked.

"I dunno. I felt like a spy, so I did a code like a spy," he shrugged.

"Whatever. We're all here, so now we can start," Switzerland said at his crate podium. "I'm going to get right to the point: we need to get Dagas out of that school."

"Um, I don't know about you, but I think she's made it painfully clear that she doesn't want our help," someone in the crowd objected, followed by a flurry of discouraged murmurs.

"I know, I know, it's a stretch! But she needs to get her out of there!"

"I agree. The teachers have been apparently merciless to her," L stated, obviously from experience with the homework situation.

"Really look at her! This is killing her from the inside out!" Switzerland stated.

"Oh, that phrase is so cliché!"

He cleared his throat and moved on. "We have to stop this! And we have only until winter next month! Once the shopping season starts, it's all over! We need to act by then!"

"How the hell do you suppose we do something as bat-shit insane as that?" Mello questioned.

"We'll need a good game plan, first off," B said.

"Exactly! This is why I wanted you all here," he paused and leaned forward on the podium. "Any ideas?"

"Why don't we just kill em' all?" Shizuo suggested.

"No, then we'll all be in prison for being accomplices," someone pointed out.

"Why don't we report all of the teachers in for sexual harassment?"

"No: too suspicious."

There were a few more individual ideas thrown out, though all of them were pretty illogical. Thought after thought was blurted out, but nothing could be agreed on. As the ideas were thrown out, an unsteadiness began to fill the room as something from the back of the room started to gain some attention. From the back of the room, an unfamiliar, hooded man steadily made his way to the podium. He traveled around the circle, people staring suspiciously at him as he passed by. He soon made his way to the podium, moving Switzerland aside and stepping up. He quickly gained everybody's attention and waited for the room to grow silent. He reached up and pulled off his black hood, revealing a face that could be simply described as "bejeweled." His makeup was think, his pants were tight and his hair was… fabulous!

"Hello there… My name is Adam Lambert, and I think I can help."

"Oh… oh my god! You're A… uh!" There was a slam, and at the back of the circle, Greil was passed out cold on the floor.

"Adam Lambert?" half of the circle asked.

"Why in the world are you here?" someone asked.

"Well, I don't know if it was a paradox or what, but somehow I got locked in one of your boxes here. I couldn't help but overhear your meeting and think of something while I was trying to break out. Now, like I said, I have a plan. A master plan that cannot fail, and I don't care if you understand it!"

"Hah!" Greil loudly giggled as he vaguely regained consciousness.

"Now listen: what we're going to need for this to work is a list of the school schedule for the next month, an entire map of the school, and all of your participation… and if you have it, I'd like to borrow a Bedazzle Machine."

* * *

><p>12 days later~<p>

"Oh, you just think you're bleeding."

"Um, I actually am bleeding… right here," I protested to the nurse as I pointed at my cheek bone that was now a gruesome shade of crimson red.

"You're lying! That's just catsup!" the moronic blond nurse insisted.

"Damn it, could I just have a band aid?"

"You don't need a band aid to cure a catsup stain! Now get out of my office!" the nurse ordered.

I gave her a snarl and left with my hand held under my chin to prevent it from dripping on the floor.

Today I was forced to survive another dreadful day at this school once again. I had gotten to the point of being able to accept death by school work or mutilation, but what really frightened me right now was the thought of the blond finding something along the lines of a sharp rake to chuck at my head.

My existence had become quite dreary these days without my mall. What's worse was the fact that I had chosen to ignore my employees in the hopes that they would quit getting involved with this. That was an unfortunate decision to have made. Without them, I was the very definition of "forever alone." But was I to do now? Say "I'm sorry for telling you all to get the hell out of my life"? Some would take that as a valid apology, but most of the people working for me wouldn't think of it as even a valid statement. Really, there wasn't much I could do about anything now.

"Hey, bitch!" I heard from down the hall. "What happened? You pop a zit?" the blond sarcastically asked as she pointed to my bleeding face.

"I did not! You threw an Alvin and the Chipmunks happy meal toy at me! You nearly stabbed my eye out with that damn things' foot!"

"Oh, don't be such a drama queen!"

"This is not drama! This is the anger of a rodent karate-kick victim!"

"Oh, stop with your whining! Besides, your mood should be better with the rally coming up today… I'm sure you're going to love it," she sneered as she struck a pose to flaunt her navy blue and gold cheer uniform. "Tootles!" She then pranced right up to me and swacked my open wound with her pom-pom.

I let out a fake sniffle and cupped my hand over my open face. "No it won't… I have no pep…"

Today was the day of the school's annual pep rally. Taking a closer look at any pep rally, all they really are is a chance for the cheer squad to flaunt what little skill they possess. As for me, pep rallies have always upset me. You sit in the cold bleachers for half of the day, listen to gay songs that were never popular in the first place and the school gives up valuable money and time for a worthless cause.

In every single way I wasn't looking forward to today. Sadly, the rally was mandatory, so I would be forced to tough it out and, if I got lucky, fall asleep until it was over. I highly doubted the people around me would let me sleep in a million years, but I could dream, couldn't I?

At the end of lunch, we were all hauled into the large gym. I cautiously viewed my surroundings and found a wave of stuffy teachers at high posts all about the bleachers. They were stationed to keep watch over the delinquent students. And when I say "delinquent", I mean anybody who they catch breathing wrong. Shuffling in, I could see those teachers had their work cut out for them. Merely having the ability to hear clearly gave you the opportunity to hear the voices of the dangerously moronic delinquents surrounding the area.

Soon, we were all seated and forced to wait about a half an hour for the cheer team to set up. While waiting, people seemed to find looking at the wet, bloody wad of tissues on my face to be a good pass time. It felt like I was the mentally challenged lion behind the big glass window at the zoo.

Sure enough, the rally started at last, and the moment it did, my ears were bombarded by the sound of ape like screeches from the larger jocks in the school. Along with the screams and hollers, I was forced to watch the cheer squad routine that had been timed poorly to a shitty Miley Cyrus song that had been played 500 times on the radio maybe 8 years ago. At one point, I tried to sleep through the horrid display, but the hawk-like teachers thumped me on the head every time I would doze off.

Once the routine was over, one of the more immature teachers grabbed a bull-horn and began to start the announcements. He started by listing off the time of the next football game that everybody knew about for weeks. He then said something about another fundraiser (probably made so that the teachers could get a higher salary for this quarter) and then started with something unexpected.

"Also, the captain of the cheer squad asked me to give out a special announcement… Um, apparently, all new students that have been enrolled into this school in the past month… will be vigorously slapped by the student body after the assembly."

I cringed in my seat and watched as every single person in the gym glared down at me, some with evil smiles others with menacing sneers. By the end of today, I had been doomed to walk the earth looking like a fruit that had been dropped on the floor one too many times. Though I had been waiting for the students to attack me right then and there, nothing happened. There was only silence as, what would have been loud screams and an ambush upon me, was replaced when the gym doors suddenly burst open in a flurry of excitement and… glitter?

In the doorway stood, literally, a man in black. His eye liner, his jacket, his gloves, his skinny jeans; all black. Although it was hard to see through the thick crowds of people, I just barely caught a glimpse of his face, which held a suspicious look to it. Not bad suspicious, but a look that would make it known that something was up.

There was a moment of silence, but that was soon broken. Belting out of his lungs came the noise of a wailing angel, far surpassing the talent of all the Jackson 5 combined. It echoed loud and proud off the four walls of the gym, sending some into a trance and others into a state of awe as the voice of this man gave way to his identity.

His extended, awe inspiring note ended, gaining every single person's attention, and with that, he waited silently for the first reaction. From one of the upper levels of the bleachers, a scream was heard loud enough for all to hear. "Oh my god! It's Adam Lambert!" The female students sprang up from their seats and began squealing with glee like a hoard of toddlers at a Wiggles concert. As I struggled to push past the rushing crowds, I saw through the gaps of people that the famed pop star was struggling to look around for something. And it wasn't the kind of looking where he was just waving and soaking up the attention from his adoring fans. He was looking around curiously for something. Or someone.

He looked around for a bit longer and suddenly stopped, looking straight up at the bleachers that I was standing on. He gave out a smile, pulled out his rein-stoned, midnight-blue phone and began to formulate a text. Now, I was a bit confused by this, but the rest of the screaming students didn't seem to care. From what I could see, he sent out a quick, simple text and slid the phone back into his leather jacket. Again, I found it a bit suspicious that a pop star would stop to send a text while out in a public place, but I tried to just go with it.

As he stood in the middle of the gym, fangirls having to be held back by the teachers, I began to hear a faint noise. It remained quiet, but even over the screams of the girls, I could still hear it getting closer to the school. As it got closer, I started to become a little antsy to see what it could be coming from. Maybe it was Adam's tour bus or his backup singers. I highly doubted it, but let me tell you, nothing I could have ever expected could match up to what entered this school.

I stood up as high as I could on top of the bleacher I had been sitting on to see if I could identify what the sound was. Before I could decipher it, however, the sound abruptly stopped. This heightened my suspicions even more. I decided to stick with the idea that it had all been in my head. That thought was proven wrong after the following events.

I drew my attention to the back of the gym, which was where I thought the sound had been coming from. Standing by the back doors, a peculiar man in a janitors' uniform was messing with the locks. He jiggled a couple locks, periodically brushing back his shoulder-length blond hair, and as quick as a fox, he undid every last one. Quickly and quietly, he pulled out the dividing bars between the four doors in the back, pulled them wide open and kicked down the kick stands on the doors. As swiftly as he had appeared, he bolted away to the other end of the gym, seeming to be running away from something behind him.

The sound from outside suddenly started up again, causing me to jump a little as it had become louder than before. By now, the noise was clear enough for me to finally figure out what it could be from where I sat. I listened closely and became startled as I made out the noise to be the sound of several revving engines just outside the doors.

With the happy screams suddenly escalating to quick shrieks, two cars, a red Chevy and a silver Subaru, screamed loudly into the center of the gym, clearing the crowd away in an instant. Leading in front of them, a jet black motorcycle raced in, screeching to a halt in between the two cars. My eyes grew wide and my body began to shake as I came to the realization of what this was: the loud distraction, the suspicious custodian, the vehicles that I could easily recognize together! It all made sense now! This was a jail-break.

The room had cleared from the talking and the screams. Only the sound of the engines filled the room. There was a long silence, the mass of people becoming more nervous as the clock ticked. Slowly, Celty, atop her vehicle, raised her arm to the sky and apparated her signature scythe from the air, startling half of the crowd out of their seats. As a layer of gloom appeared around her, he revved up her motorcycle, pulled up the front wheel and held up her scythe high into the air. Her vehicle brayed at an ear splitting volume, erupting another wave of hollers and screams from the students.

She brought down the wheel of her bike and the room filled with screams once more as a horrendous rumbling came from above the gym. There was screaming, rumbling, and, surprisingly, flapping noises everywhere I could see. Panicked, I looked up into the gym's sky lights and immediately ducked for cover, the windows shattering open, sending shattered glass on to people's heads. When I looked back up and removed my hands from my head, I stared in alarm as the huge, flamboyant bird, Ho-Oh, burst through the windows with Morty soaring on its' back, howling with glee as he swooped all about the room. Following him came a wave of bird pokémon with Falkner in the lead atop his prized Pidgeot. From behind him, a swarm of my other employees came swooping in on top of a flock of newly caught Staraptors.

At the very end by the back doors, the final wave of people from my mall charged in, bearing water pipes as weapons. I prayed they weren't the water pipes in any of our stores as I found Russia with the biggest pipe leading the wave.

At one end of the room, the students around me swarmed to get out of the front doors while, at the other end, the gym teachers tried to fight off the ground brigade. I stood where I was, shocked that this was actually happening. Paralyzed by fright, I hardly noticed it when Morty began to descend his Ho-Oh towards me. Without stopping his bird for even a second, I was swooped off the ground by the bird pokémon, my lungs going hoarse as I screamed like an 8 year old at a haunted house. The bird rose higher and higher until the two of us could see the entire gym.

"What a view, eh?" Morty commented as he looked down at the scrambling people.

"Morty, what the hell are you all doing here?" I screamed, my voice cracking on every other word.

"We'll explain once we get back," he assured.

He tightened his purple scarf a bit and patted the bird on the neck, sending us into a quick dive back to the ground. Just before we would have hit, he veered the bird up, landing it safely on the ground. He reached his hand down and picked up the once person we had landed right next to: Adam Lambert.

"Hi, how are you? Call me Adam," he said to me as he hopped on the bird right behind me and held out his hand.

"Oh… oh my… Adam Lambert?" I squealed.

"The one and only."

"Wha… y-you're… what the hell is going on here?"

"I told you, we'll explain once we get back! Now hang on tight! We're blowin' this cracker barrel!" Morty enthusiastically warned. As fast as a bullet, we soared up the open sky light, high above the frantic school and over the roads of screaming drivers. We all tightened out grips on the bird and Morty patted it on the neck once more. With that, it began to majestically fly north, carrying us home.

* * *

><p>"Whoa! What a rush!" I exclaimed once we landed in the empty parking lot.<p>

"Ain't it?" Morty agreed as he brought his Ho-Oh back into its' master ball.

I turned around to view the crowd behind me and saw the rest of my employees brushing their hair back, clambering out of cars and carefully trying to dismount off of birds. Looking around, I saw that whatever they had planned, it was pretty well made. Each person had their own individual part that suited their style and each one played a part. The more violent ones got water pipes and the more hyper-energetic ones got to have fun on their own bird. It was so well thought out, it made me smile. Though, it didn't have the impressment powers strong enough to answer my one question.

"So, Morty, now that we're all back, why the hell did you all storm the school like a band or rampaging barbarians?" I furiously screamed.

"I resent that!" England angrily called out.

"Well?" I stood in my usual, angry stance, arms crossed, eyes swelteringly irritated and foot maliciously tapping on the ground.

"We came to save you," he innocently said.

"What?" I asked, arms unfolded in fading rage.

"We could all see that you were suffering at that school," L elaborated.

"And you kept saying that you couldn't do anything about it," Switzerland pointed out.

"So we did something about it," Falkner finished as he started piling the birds into his stack of poke-balls.

"B-but… I told you all to stay out of it! Didn't any of you listen?" I angrily yelled.

"What, you thought we would actually heed to that?" Matt scoffed.

"We couldn't just leave you like that: that would be cruelty," Suzaku said.

"W-well… well none of that explains why Adam Lambert is here!" I objected as my eyes started to well up a bit.

"I just happened to have broken out of a crate when they were having their meeting in the warehouse about two weeks ago. Your situation sounded bad so I helped out in devising the whole plan," Adam explained, a proud look glued onto his cheery smile.

"Lemme guess; it was your master plan, and even though you explained it to me anyways, you didn't really care if I understood it at all?" I questioned.

"…Actually, yeah! That's exactly what it was! How'd you know?"

"Lucky guess," I shrugged.

I turned my body around rapidly as I felt a little tugging at the end of my hoodie. Looking up at me with a mopey look in his big eyes, Honey meekly asked as if I was about to hit him, "You aren't mad at us… are you, sama?"

On any other day, I would have said that I was completely furious with them. This incident would probably get us shut down by the cops in just a couple hours! But as I looked at the shameful, apologetic faces of all of my employees, it finally came to me; this was a group of people who would go beyond the majority of the working class people in the world and put their own jobs on the line to rescue their own ruthless boss. I now knew, I wasn't just the cold hearted manager I feared they hated. I wasn't that at all, just like they weren't my employees at all. They were my friends, my only friends… and my family… and I was that to them. These people cared dearly about me and I tried to push them away this whole time when I needed them most. Even when I gave up on them, they refused to give up on me: and that was one of the little things that gave me good reason to live.

"Are you crying?" one of them asked.

"N-no… I just got an eyelash in my eye," I sniffled.

Honey knew I was lying and immediately hugged his arms around my waist. Around me, my tears overflowed as the people around me began to crowd in and join the group. A few hung back, being that they didn't like hugs, but I could still see them smiling sweetly at me.

"Oh… I love you guys! I don't ever want to abandon you all like this again," I promised to all of them. The group murmured happy replies and hugged tighter as we enjoyed this sweet moment. At least, we enjoyed it while it lasted.

From the front of the parking lot, a poof of smoke appeared, carrying Sunni and Austria with it. Sunni's face seemed unusually amused while, as for Austria, his was quite disappointed.

"Thank you," he said to the hobo when they arrived.

"Don't mention it," she replied before poofing back from where she came.

"Uck, that was the filthiest form of transportation I have ever taken! Never again," he grumbled as he brushed off his regular royal blue robes. "Is Dagas here?" he asked, a menacing anger in his tone.

I scrunched up into the group in the hopes that he wouldn't see me, from the front of the group, B, Mello and Russia made a protective wall around all of us, water pipes in hand and vicious looks on their faces.

"Oh, don't make such a fuss. I'm just here to deliver a message."

"What do you want?" I asked as I emerged from the huddle of people.

"I've received word from the school board. They seem to have made a decision after you big exit."

"Oh, just say it! I have to go back to school? Juvenile hall? Are they gonna shut down the mall? Oh! Worse! Are they gonna ship me off to die of malaria in the deep jungles of Africa?"

"No! Nothing of the sort! Now listen! They have spoken with the super intendant and have made a big decision," he said in a stern tone. "They have agreed…" there was a long, suspenseful silence. "You, and your employees, are legally banned from an education in every school district in the state of Illinois. This ban will go on all of your permanent records, making it near impossible to gain an education in any school in the U.S."

"Rock on!" America called out from the back.

"Yes, what you said."

"Wait, if we're expelled from every school in this state, then why were you so steamed when you got here? This has nothing to do with you!" I pointed out.

"I personally take it as my problem because I'm the one who forced you to go to that school in the first place. I failed to see the error in that, so now we have half of a public school in shambles. I take it as my own fault, not yours."

"Um… if you say so," I shrugged.

"Well… while I'm here, might I-"

"Um, about that," I said before walking towards him, wrapping my arm around his shoulder and walking him towards the exit. "You're gonna love this, see, the problem is, um…" I violently snapped my hand into a viper grip on his shoulder. "I'm still in charge of this property and what I say is law! Now get the FUCK out of my mall!" Without a moments' hesitation, I grabbed him by his puffy ascot, pulled him to the end of the parking lot and slammed him down onto the sidewalk just inches behind the border that separated my property from the public property. "And stay out, you stuffy son of a bitch!" I cackled a bit like a drunken witch and stomped off, feeling proud in my long awaited victory.

"Yo, Austria!" Prussia called over once I had fully stormed away. "Du! Ich! Sclafzimmer! Jetz! Or I shall seize your vital religions with the power of a thousand Prussian armies!"

And thus, all was finally right with the world once again. Balance had been set, all of us were in the right place, and this exiting chapter of our lives was finally said and done.

* * *

><p>Now remember, children, the moral of this story wasn't just that you shouldn't let Austrians into your house. The moral was that bullying people is bad, and if you don't leave people alone, well, they'll crash into your school on fictional birds and hit your gym teachers with water pipes… or something. Good night New York!<p> 


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